Leonard Peltier was from the Northwest

From: "bayou"
Date: Wed, February 1, 2012

From the Tacoma Chapter of the LPDOC

THE NORTHWEST UNITED IN SOLIDARITY!

LEONARD PELTIER WAS FROM THE NORTHWEST. Leonard had been living in
Seattle and was a member of Northwest AIM. He had been involved in a
number of local struggles including the occupation of Fort Lawton. When
the traditional Oglala Lakota people were suffering under a reign of
terror after Wounded Knee II, over 66 of them murdered, many more
wounded, villages shot up and so on. Northwest AIM answered a plea by
Oglala Lakota Elders and help them survive. On the very day in which a
part of Oglala Lakota was being illegally signed away to the U.S.
government, the FBI attacked the Northwest AIM encampment and a
firefight took place.

The first two AIM members to go on trial, and were found not guilty
for reason of self-defense, were from the northwest. The one AIM member
who died upon that day, Joe Stuntz Killsright was from Port Angeles. We
of the Northwest need to let everyone know that we will not forget and
that we will stand strong for our own. Leonard is in prison for the
people and we need to be out here for him!
On Feb. 4, 2012, this coming Saturday, is the INTERNATIONAL DAY IN
SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER, we here in the northwest, Portland,
Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle and other towns in unity, have organized a
Regional Leonard Peltier Clemency March and Rally in Tacoma. We need
the help of all of you to make this a strong statement that northwest
people stand with Leonard in solidarity. Everyone of you is important.

Please northwest people join with us as we join with people around the
world. The Northwest region of the U.S. (Tacoma, Portland, Olympia,
Seattle and other towns united together) march in Tacoma, WA; Toronto
and Vancouver; Canada; Binghamton, UK; Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg,
Germany; Brussels and Antwerp Belgium; Dublin, Ireland; Boulder, CO,
San Jose, CA; Gullup, NM; Los Angeles, CA; Albuquerque, NM; San
Francisco, CA; New York City, NY; Fresno, CA; Buffalo, NY; Macon and
Decatur, GA; and other places.

This is the most important march and rally so far in the northwest for
Leonard. If you have marched with us before, please join us again. If
you have ever thought about supporting Leonard, now is the time to do
it. Please join us, please bring your family and friends. Thank you.

As individual fingers we can easily be broken, but all together we make
a mighty fist.
-- Sitting Bull

INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER
NW REGIONAL MARCH AND RALLY FOR CLEMENCY FOR LEONARD PELTIER

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY, 4, 2012, TACOMA, WA.

12:00 NOON: MARCH FOR JUSTICE Portland Ave. Park (on Portland Ave.
between E. 35th & E. Fairbanks. Take Portland Ave. exit off I-5 and
head east)
1:00 PM: RALLY FOR JUSTICE U.S. Federal Court House, 1717-Pacific Ave.

PLEASE POST, SHARE AND LIKE ON FACEBOOK:
Please share
INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER NW MARCH AND RALLY:
FEB. 4, TACOMA. 12:00 NOON: MARCH FOR JUSTICE Portland Ave. Park (on
Portland Ave. between E. 35th & E. Fairbanks. Take Portland Ave. exit
off I-5 and head east)
1:00 PM: RALLY FOR JUSTICE U.S. Federal Court House, 1717-Pacific Ave.

SPEAKERS:
Co-MCs
Matilaja: Yuâ Pik Eskimo from Mountain Village Alaska. Member of N.W.
AIM since 1973, Friend of Leonard Peltier for 38 odd years and member
of Tacoma Chapter LPDOC
Steve Hapy: Long time Leonard Peltier and Native struggles activist,
Tacoma Chapter LPDOC
Leonard Peltier Honor Song:
AIM Warrior Society Drum
Opening:
Dorothy Ackerman: Lakota Elder
Drum:
Albert Combs and Coastal Hand Drum Singers
Welcoming:
Deeahop Conway, Puyallup Tribal member, Tacoma Chapter LPDOC
Leonard's case and up-date;
Arthur J. Miller: Northwest Regional Organizer LPDOC, Tacoma Chapter
LPDOC, long time union member and human rights activist
Keynote Speaker:
Ramona Bennett: Puyallup Tribal Elder, Life long friend of Leonard
Peltier, Grand Mother, Great Grand Mother
Chester Earl: Puyallup Tribal member
Zoltan Grossman: Evergreen State College faculty in Geography and Native
Studies, in Olympia. former board member of Midwest Treaty Network in
Wisconsin.
Decolonization:
Claudia Serrato
Unity:
Michael One Road: Portland Chapter LPDOC
Closing words:
David Duenas: Puyallup Tribal Member

Feb. 4, 2012 Regional March in Tacoma Facebook event pages please sign
that you are coming and please invite your friends.
http://www.facebook.com/events/#!/events/163763897043790/
http://www.facebook.com/events/#!/events/179938242097693/

RESOLUTIONS FOR CLEMENCY: Leonard needs resolutions for clemency from
Tribes, Unions, Human Rights Organizations and others. See a sample
resolution at:
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/resolution.htm

For donations: Please make checks payable to the Leonard Peltier
Defense/Offense Committee (mark them for NW March) and send them to:
Tacoma Chapter LPODC, P.O. Box 5464, Tacoma, WA 98415.

Join Tacoma Chapter LPDOC on facebook at:
http://facebook.com/tacoma.lpdoc
Subscribe to: Northwest Peltier Support at:
nwpeltiersupport-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
For more information: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info

TACOMA CHAPTER, LPDOC, P.O. BOX 5464, TACOMA, WA 98415-0464.
bayou@blarg.net

ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,ZAP,

NORTHWEST PHONE AND E-MAIL ZAP, FEBRUARY 6 TO 10, 2012
White House Comments Line - 202-456-1111; 202-456-1112
E-mail: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Message: Northwest people support clemency for Leonard Peltier

It is important to keep phone calls, e-mails, and letters going to the
White House during the clemency campaign. But we want to make sure that
it is very clear that the northwest supports clemency for Leonard
Peltier, so we have called for a phone and e-mail Zap (a phone Zap is
when a lot of people call around the same time), the week after the
regional march and rally. Please northwest folks show your support of
Leonard Peltier. Thank you.

International call for solidarity with Zerman Elias – 7/2/12 (Chile)

Jan. 29, 2012 325 No State

From culmine, translated by war on society:

Zerman Elias was arrested on September 22nd after having thrown a molotov
cocktail at a gas-projecting truck of the riot police. This action was
within the context of revolt after a student march. Zerman is arrested by
three bastards of the carbineros [military police] who were dressed as
demonstrators and after the attack tackled the comrade.

Zerman was interrogated by “intelligence” agents and they questioned him
about persons, inviting him the whole time to collaborate in order to save
his skin, but the compa disdained the dialogue with the bastards and kept
silent without even giving his name.

We remember that Power made much allusion to the origin of the comrade,
for having been born in the territory dominated by the Bolivian State. In
a clear xenophobic and racist play, spreading the message that immigrants
should be calm to not be imprisoned and extradited.

The day of Tuesday February 27 the abbreviated trial against the compa
will be held, for the charges of “public disorder,” “possession of
incendiary device” and “damages” against a police vehicle.

The case of us three due to not having prior criminal records, at the
moment of being eventually sentenced we will not return to prison and will
remain on “guarded freedom” [probation] for the length of the sentence, as
is the case with the compa Francisco Moreno.

We have say it before, we do not recognize their tribunals nor their
judges that come to sermonize to us. We are proud of who we are and they
will never see us kiss the boot of repentance. They can dictate sentences
to try to domesticate our will, but they will only waste their time. Like
the rivers in periods of rain, the more they try to control them, the
cause exceeds all limits and continues its course because it is wild.

We make a call to international solidarity, since Power seeks to punish a
common praxis that all of us warriors spread across the world have. Forms
of solidarity are many, each individuality or collectivity will see which
it decides to employ, from banners to graffiti and from the rock against
the window to the heat of the molotov.

May our enemy know that it is not so easy to come and judge a comrade, and
may no one feel alone. That is the invitation, to all the indomitables who
we do not know, but who have been a pleasant accompaniment in these months
of captivity. Your texts and gestures that arrive from distant and nearby
lands are for us strength and joy that remind us that we are not alone.

Never defeated, never repentant!
Solidarity with all the prisoners of war!
Strength to the fugitive comrades!

Group of Political Prisoners of the Struggle in the Streets
Gonzalo Zapata
Cristóbal Franke
Zerman Elias

PS: As part of this call to international solidarity for Tuesday February
7, Cristobal and Gonzalo will do a voluntary fast for the duration of the
day.

Greece: Anarchist Yannis Dimitrakis released from prison

Jan. 31, 2012 Athens Indymedia

I was, I am and I will be an anarchist. As long as I live and breathe the journey will continue —Y.Dimitrakis

Anarchist Yannis Dimitrakis was arrested, heavily wounded by cop bullets, on January 16th, 2006, after the National Bank robbery on Solonos Street, in the centre of Athens.

A storm of misinformation was systematically supplied by the police and readily carried out by the mass media, as his arrest was followed by a delirious state propaganda about the alleged existence of a so-called “robbers’ in black gang”; in the days while he was still being hospitalized in the intensive care unit, the infamous “terror”-prosecutor Diotis attempted to interrogate him; his friends and relatives were targeted; and in the prosecution case against him, the anti-terrorist provision as well as charges for a number of additional robberies were included. Dimitrakis defended the particular bank robbery in which he was arrested as his political choice, as a choice based on his opposition to the blackmail of work as well as to the role of banks. In addition, from the first moment and during the entire time of his captivity he was actively present in revolts and struggles within prisons and through his writings kept a vivid contact with developments on the outside. The prosecuting mechanisms also accused and proclaimed wanted for the case three more anarchists, Simos and Marios Seisidis and Grigoris Tsironis, actually reaching the point of placing a bounty on their heads in October 2009. Simos Seisidis has been acquitted both in the trial for the outrageous case of “robbers’ in black gang” and the trial for attempted murder (!) against the same cop who shot him in the leg. Nevertheless, Simos is still under pretrial detention in the “hospital” of Koridallos prisons, waiting to stand one last trial, while Marios Seisidis and Grigoris Tsironis are fugitives to this day.

The outcome of Dimitrakis’ trial in the first degree, in July 2007, was an exterminating sentence of 35 years. During his appeal court, in December 2010, his sentence was reduced to 12.5 years. Finally, after being incarcerated six whole years, the comrade was released from prison on parole.

NO FIGHTER A HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF THE POWER
AND ECONOMIC ELITES

FREEDOM NOW TO ALL IN PRISON

read more ~ a, b, c, d, e

http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net/

Athens : Giannis Dimitrakis is Free! (Greece)

325 No State Jan 31, 2012

The anarchist Giannis Dimitrakis was arrested heavily wounded after a robbery at a branch of the National Bank in the center of Athens, on January 16th, 2006. Now he is free and there was a massive party in Exarchia in Athens when he got out. Nice one Giannis.

G. Dimitrakis :“I was, I am and I will be an anarchist. As long as I live and breathe the journey will continue”

“My punishment is a field for fighting and conflict with authority”

“The robbery was a representative solution for my ideological and existential problems. It is the answer to the question of how an anarchist goes on. In the dilemma if I shall remain a weak-minded spectator or an active citizen I decided to participate. In the end we will win!!!!”

NO FIGHTER A HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF THE POWER AND ECONOMIC ELITES

-

Background:
Letter from Giannis Dimitrakis, anarchist prisoner

The Story of a Bank Robbery – About Giannis Dimitrakis (Into Rebellion / EE)

International Solidarity with Eat & Billy, members of the Long-Live Luciano Tortuga Cell – FAI / IRF (Indonesia)

325 No State

From Indonesia to Chile…

October 7th, 2011 - two anarchists are arrested and imprisoned in
Yogyakarta, Indonesia, after an explosive incendiary attack against an
empty branch of BRI ATM bank. The action is declared through a written
document which the police catch the anarchists in possession of. The
written declaration states that the action is in solidarity with Luciano
‘Tortuga’ (a young anarchist combatant in Chile, who was accidentally
maimed in a bomb attack against Santander bank), as well as many anarchist
prisoners, including those of ‘Caso Bombas’ in Chile and the Revolutionary
Organisations – Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and Revolutionary Struggle in
Greece. Situating themselves firmly within the global revolutionary war
for liberation and freedom, Eat & Billy also state that their action is a
direct attack against the terrorism of the Indonesian State and their
police and military. Their text which takes responsibility for the direct
action speaks of numerous places that are terrorised by paramilitaries
like in West Papua, which is known for massacres and injustice. Also
mentioned are the areas of Kulon Progo and Wera (Bima) where iron mines
threatens the lives of the people, animals and plants, in these places
people are arrested and disappeared for speaking out and organising
resistance.

In vengeance, the Indonesian authorities want to increase the charges
against Eat and Billy from ‘property damage’ to ‘terrorism’, and would
like to apply newly made ‘anti-terrorist’ charges against the two comrades
for attracting international attention. This it would like to achieve by
charging them with the equivalent of ‘international terrorist links’,
which could increase their prison sentences considerably. As the agents of
‘justice’ arrange ‘anti-terrorist’ laws around them, trying to connive new
charges and premise for new investigations against the Indonesian
anarchist movement, the international police authorities want to make sure
the Indonesian State condemns Eat & Billy to long prison terms. This is
aimed to punish and intimidate the newly growing anarchist direct action
in South East Asia, and prevent the dynamic project of the Informal
Anarchist Federation / International Revolutionary Front (FAI / IRF) from
spreading.

This co-ordinated judicial intimidation must not be allowed to isolate and
bury Eat & Billy. The repression can be defeated by turning the prolonged
incarceration of any of our comrades into a painful memory for every
regime that seeks to dismantle and extinguish the new generation of
anarchists of praxis. Eat & Billy proudly took their responsibility for
the destructive attack against the BRI ATM bank. As they sit inside jail
waiting for their trial which comes in the near future, the blood-sucking
parasites who destroy the natural wild spaces for profit and enslave
continents are free to continue their murderous villainy.

This is a call for continued international solidarity with Eat and Billy,
in common struggle against the bankers, corporations, militarists and
nation-states. Let’s bear in mind the exploitation facing the people of
Indonesian in industries for foreign export – mines and sweatshop
factories for commercial products in fashion, information technology
products and Western tourism etc.

Eat & Billy have made their absolute refusal of the demands of power
despite long interrogations and stated their firm declaration of their
rebel individuality. Their courage and undying compassionate flame is part
of an increasing social inferno racing across the planet as a global
network of action and solidarity brings joy and rebellion into every place
where dignified people struggle for freedom and for the protection of the
environment.

Against the show-trials of Eat & Billy, which will take place on the
January 30 and February 1.

LONG LIVE THE INFORMAL ANARCHIST FEDERATION

LONG LIVE THE INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY FRONT

Freedom for Eat, Billy and Luciano too – Fire and Gunpowder for Bosses,
Bankers and the State.

Portugal denies 2nd US appeal for fugitive return

By BARRY HATTON | Associated Press – Wed, Feb 1, 2012

LISBON, Portugal — Portugal's Supreme Court has refused a second appeal by the U.S. to extradite American fugitive George Wright.

A court ruling provided to The Associated Press on Wednesday showed judges confirmed a decision last month to deny a U.S. appeal for extradition. They issued their ruling Tuesday without providing details.

The U.S. can lodge a final appeal at the Constitutional Court in Lisbon.

Portuguese police captured the 68-year-old Wright near the capital Lisbon last September, ending his four decades on the lam after escaping from a New Jersey prison.

A lower court judge ruled in November that Wright had become a Portuguese citizen and that, under Portuguese law, the statute of limitations on his 15- to 30-year sentence for a robbery-murder in New Jersey had expired. It consequently refused to send him back to the U.S.

The Supreme Court judges wrote in Tuesday's decision that the U.S. arguments "did not invalidate" the earlier ruling.

In Portugal, foreign authorities must present their extradition request through the local Public Prosecutor's office.

However, the Portuguese Public Prosecutor decided against an appeal. Its reasons for doing so were not made public. In Portugal, extradition cases are conducted in secret.

The Supreme Court consequently ruled that it was not legally permissible for the U.S. to appeal alone, rejecting the appeal on procedural grounds.

Wright's Portuguese lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, told The AP he had not yet seen the Supreme Court ruling and declined to comment.

However, he said that Wright was "happy" with the decision. "It's good for us," Ferreira said by telephone.

Wright, now called Jorge Luis dos Santos after changing his name, is married to a Portuguese woman and has two grown children. They have lived near Lisbon since 1993.

Wright spent seven years in a U.S. prison for gunning down a man during a 1962 gas station robbery in New Jersey. Wright and others broke out of prison in 1970. He was among a group that hijacked a plane in 1972 from the U.S. to Algeria along with other Black Liberation Army militants.

Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony in West Africa, granted him political asylum in the 1980s when it was run by a Marxist government. Wright then got Portuguese citizenship through his 1991 marriage to a Portuguese woman.

Wright was captured in Portugal after his U.S. fingerprint matched one in Portugal's database of prints for all citizens, according to U.S. officials.

The daughter of Walter Paterson, the man killed during the New Jersey holdup, said Wednesday the latest decision sounded to her like more of the same though she hadn't learned the details yet.

"I would always hope that they would do what is right," said Ann Patterson, 63, of Howell, New Jersey.

___

Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

The Abuse of Children In Privately Run Prisons

By John Bowden

After more than a decade of unlawful abuse and brutality within child prisons run by private security companies it took the deaths of two young people and the inquests into those deaths to finally expose the sort of violence routinely inflicted on children held in such institutions. A subsequent legal action brought by the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) laid bare completely what had been going on in these places, and on the 11th January the High Court delivered a judgement that was absolutely damning of the privately owned and run “Secure Training Centres” (STC) and the brutality of their regimes.

In his judgement Judge Justice Foskett said that in bringing the case CRAE had shone “a light into a corner which might otherwise have remained in the dark,” and indeed it was a corner of the penal system where the brutalisation of already damaged children in the name of so-called “restraint” was endemic and institutionalised and actively encouraged and promoted by the government's Youth Justice Board. It was also revealed that none of the statutory agencies charged with monitoring the care and treatment of children in the STCs did anything to stop the unlawful treatment. Clearly the human rights of such powerless working class children counted for nothing.

What the ruling finally exposed were places where a culture of abuse had been allowed to flourish and where the victims were too terrified to complain and accepted such treatment as an inevitable part of their captivity. In his Judgement Justice Foskett said, “I do not think there can be any doubt that in the vast majority of cases the detainees made the subject of an (unlawful) restraint technique would simply have accepted it as part and parcel of the routine in the STC. There is, of course, also the inevitable reluctance that there would have been on the part of the young detainee to “rock the boat” by making a complaint.” Too frightened to complain on their own behalf, the children subjected to abuse and ill treatment were given absolutely no protection by social workers or prison inspectors who knew exactly what was going on. Justice Foskett said in this regard, “It is a legitimate comment that until the deaths of Gareth Myatt and Adam Rickwood, and the investigations and inquiries that resulted from these deaths, none of the agencies in place to monitor what took place within an STC had identified and/or acted to stop the unlawful nature of what was happening.” In fact, so-called monitors from the Youth Justice Board actively encouraged restraint techniques (which were often injury inducing) that were criticised by the United Nations, the European Torture Committee and Parliamentarians on the Joint Committee on Human Rights. These techniques included the “nose distraction” technique, which involved members of staff punching non-complying children on the nose; other “restraint” techniques included punching children in the ribs and yanking their thumbs back. 14 year old Adam Rickwood was subjected to the “nose distraction” technique hours before he hung himself.

The extent of the abuse was also revealed in the judgement. The number of violent “restraints” on children ran at over 350 per month across the 4 STCs up until July 2008. Hassockfield STC seemed to use an almost gratuitous amount of violence against it's child inmates and during a six month period in 2004 applied violent “restraint” approximately 570 times.

The widespread use of unlawful violence over such a prolonged period was allowed and encouraged to take place because those employing it operated without any accountability and because an environment of frequent staff brutality was obviously considered appropriate for difficult and rebellious working class children.

Despite delivering a scathing condemnation of the STC regimes, Justice Foskett refused to make a judgement requiring the state to identify victims and notify them of their right to seek compensation. He claimed that such a judgement might have a “springboard” effect in creating a mass of compensation claims from both children and adults abused in state institutions. There was no suggestion either that a police investigation should be conducted into what took place in the STCs over such a prolonged period, nor any inquiry into the culpability of senior management at G4S and Serco or why both companies are continuing to run and operate penal facilities for children. In effect, everyone involved in the unlawful abuse of children in the
STCs for over a decade got off scot-free.

An important question that emerges from this case is why the care and custody of already damaged children is still being entrusted to profit-driven private companies like G4S and Serco, who have clearly shown by this case a total disregard for the human rights of those in their custody? Running jails for profit is always morally dubious, but when it has been clearly established and proven that children have been so brutalised by regimes operating in privately owned child jails that some of them have been driven to kill themselves, then the whole corrupt business needs to be fundamentally questioned.

John Bowden
HMP Shotts
January 2012

Response to Daily News attack on Oscar López Rivera

A Response to the New York Daily News
Perpetuating False Charges on the 1975 Fraunces Tavern Bombing

By Jan Susler (January 26, 2012)
www.boricuahumanrights.org

Oscar López Rivera, a 69-year-old decorated
Vietnam veteran, has spent 31 years in U.S.
prison for his commitment to the independence of
Puerto Rico. He has the dubious distinction of
being the longest held pro-independence prisoner
in Puerto Rico's history of seeking
self-determination - and thousands preceded him.
Convicted of seditious conspiracy in Chicago, he
is serving a sentence of 70 years, although he
was not convicted of harming or killing anyone.

If you read the New York Daily News article
published this year on January 24th, on the 37th
anniversary of the bombing of Fraunces Tavern,
you wouldn't know this . . . and you would be
left with the impression that López Rivera should
remain in prison because he is somehow
responsible for that tragic action. That is,
sadly, what the FBI has led the victims to
believe, and it is most certainly the weapon
wielded by the FBI in its unceasing efforts to
convince the public, the U.S. Parole Commission,
and the President, that López Rivera should remain in prison.

López Rivera has denied participation in the 1975
tragedy at Fraunces Tavern. There is no evidence
to connect him to it. If the FBI had such
evidence, it would surely prosecute him - but in
the 37 years since, it has not. Instead, it has
waged a campaign of guilt by association, using
its bully pulpit to prolong his imprisonment, and
thereby punish him for his commitment to the independence of Puerto Rico.

In fact, during his 1981 trial for seditious
conspiracy, López Rivera presented no defense in
court. Prosecutors risked little, if anything, in
charging him on this case. They did not charge
him - again, because there simply is not a shred
of evidence that could even remotely link him to
the Fraunces Tavern event. The New York Daily
News has done its readers - and more importantly,
truth and justice - a great disservice by
implying there is somehow some kind of link
between López Rivera and this case, a link that
somehow has mysteriously eluded prosecutors, the
courts and the FBI for more than 31 years.

A campaign for the release of López Rivera and
his co-defendants, which enjoyed broad support
throughout Puerto Rican civil society and among
the international human rights and faith
community, resulted in President Clinton's 1999
offer to commute the sentences of most of them.
Most were offered immediate release, but López
Rivera would have to serve an additional 10 years
behind bars. The others accepted the president's
offer, were welcomed as returning heroes in
Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican communities in the
U.S., and for the past 12 years have lived
productive, law-abiding lives. Out of concern
that the President's offer did not include all
those in prison for their commitment to
independence , López Rivera rejected the offer.
Had he accepted, he would have been released in
September of 2009. Those excluded from the
president's offer have since been released -
López Rivera is now the only one still in prison
from the Chicago seditious conspiracy cases of the 1980s.

That campaign continues to advocate for López
Rivera's release from prison. Recent activities
in Puerto Rico include mass demonstrations during
President Obama's June visit to the Island,
calling for his release - and elected officials
personally asking the President to release him -
; on the occasion of López Rivera's 69th
birthday, the Catholic Archbishop presiding over
a mass, and a gathering of representatives from
every sector of civil society calling for his
release; and students painting murals featuring
his face and the message "Freedom Now!" for López Rivera.

In the proud United States tradition of
exercising the constitutional power of pardon,
three U.S. Presidents have commuted the sentences
of Puerto Rican political prisoners: President
Truman in 1952, President Carter in 1979, and
President Clinton in 1999. President Obama should
not be fooled by the FBI's campaign of untruths.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
For more information about the campaign for Oscar
Lopez Rivera's release, contact the National
Boricua Human Rights Network at
www.boricuahumanrights.org.

Jan Susler, a partner at the People's Law Office
in Chicago and member of the National Lawyers
Guild, has been working as attorney for the
Puerto Rican political prisoners for the past 30
years, and was lead counsel in the campaign
leading to the 1999 presidential commutation. She
continues to work with those who remain in
prison. She can be reached at 773-235-0070 x 118
and jsusler@aol.com.

PP/POW Updates and Announcements - 31 Jan 2012

From: "NYC ABC"
Date: Tue, January 31, 2012

Hey:

Here's the latest compilation of every other week updates. We've mailed
hard copies to Sundiata Acoli, Joe-Joe Bowen, David Gilbert, Marie Mason,
Eric McDavid, Daniel McGowan, Jalil Muntaqim and Sekou Odinga. Please feel
free to share this link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?hiqgcu1v7ywc93b

NYC ABC
facebook.com/nycabc

--

Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/nycabc

NYC ABC
Post Office Box 110034
Brooklyn, New York 11211

nycabc[at]riseup[dot]net
http://nycabc.wordpress.com
http://myspace.com/nycanarchistblackcross
http://www.abcf.net/nyc

Free all Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War!
For the Abolition of State Repression and Domination!

PUERTO RICO: FILIBERTO OJEDA WAS PLAYING THE TRUMPET WHEN MURDERED BY THE FBI

Jesus Davila alainet.org

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, January 30th 2012 (NCM) ­ Two agents who
participated in the assault on the home of Filiberto Ojeda, Commander
of the Boricua People's Army- Macheteros, testified that the sniper
"Brian" fired the fatal shots when the veteran guerrilla was playing
his trumpet, according to the official report that determined that it
was an illegal murder and requests that the criminal investigations be
reopened.

The testimonies, which were kept secret for over five years and are
known about due to the new report by the Civil Rights Commission, were
allegedly given at scene the day after a commando unit led by the
Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) of the Federal Bureau of Investigations
attacked Ojeda's home and murdered him on September 23rd 2005.

There was an arrest warrant for Ojeda for the theft of $7 million from
the Wells Fargo in order to finance the operations by the Macheteros
and the official version of events is that when the agents arrived he
opened fire first and was able to hit three of them, one of whom
required surgery. According to that version, "Brian" took the shot
when spotting Ojeda taking aim again with his 9 mm pistol, but this
came into doubt when it became known that the locations of the sniper
did not make that observation possible.

This has led to speculation as to if a thermal sight had been used,
but this was not amongst the weapons that they reported were used.

The new evidence would explain how "Brian" could have aimed at the
direction of the sound of the trumpet since he could not see Ojeda. It
is also indicative of the fact that the sniper as well as the other
agents in the perimeter knew that at that moment the fugitive did not
pose a threat since his hands were busy with the musical instrument
and not holding his gun.

These facts are on page 128 and 129 of the 238 page report submitted
by the CDC about the bloody incident, after the Office of the
Inspector General of the FBI cleared the agents of the HRT that took
part and the Puerto Rico department of Justice closed the case after
not finding evidence of "negligent homicide".

However, the new report concludes that the HRT-FBI contingent arrived
shooting without any documented justification, and that Ojeda opened
fire with a pistol in self-defense against an assault group which
fired over a hundred rifle rounds within two minutes. The report also
states that after Ojeda was wounded there was ample opportunity to
give him medical assistance and save his life, but instead they opted
for letting him slowly bleed to death.

The following day the FBI allowed Puerto Rican investigators access
after the cadaver had been moved with a cable. The body sent to the
Institute of Forensic Sciences for a final autopsy.

The report also points to the lack of analysis in order to determine
the time of death, if the position of the body was changed in order to
alter the scene and the exact trajectory of the shots amongst other
things.

At the beginning of the investigators forensic evaluation on the 24th,
the experts noticed that Ojeda's trumpet, instead of being stored
inside the house as the priced possession it was, it was at the foot
of the cement blocks and dirt stairs at the entrance.

According to the report, in finding this, the investigators supervisor
interrogated two agents who participated in the operation who are
identified in the document. He stated that they told him that Ojeda
was playing the trumpet at the time "Brian" shot at him and that he
fell to the floor with the trumpet that later rolled down the stairs
when they pulled the body with the cable.

The forensic investigators took some pictures of the instrument and
its location, as well as tagging it for evidence. However, "report ICF
A-4622-05" does not include the trumpet amongst the items seized at
the scene.

The report stated that the statements by the official could not be
corroborated because the FBI prohibited that the two agents be
questioned by the CDC.


Luis F. Abreu Elias, one of Ojeda's attorneys stated after receiving
anonymous information that a supervisor confiscated it after one of
the FBI agents tried to take it as a trophy. Ojeda's attorneys carried
out a long battle in order to recover the trumpet, without the FBI
explaining why they kept it if it was an object that had nothing to do
with the events investigated.

According with that interview, the FBI never disclosed that the
trumped was incriminating evidence against the so called "Brian", who
refused to testify protected by the constitutional right against
self-incrimination.

After the first shootout on the day of these events, Ojeda's wife,
Mrs. Elma Beatriz Barbosa surrendered at his instructions and before
she was taken heard her husband say he would talk about surrendering
himself as well with a reporter as a witness. The negotiations
continued for some time and while waiting for a response that never
came was when Ojeda began to play the trumpet.

It is not known what Ojeda would be playing but sometime before these
events, he had said that if the FBI arrived at his house to kill him,
he would receive them with the Suite of the Americas, composed by
Damaso Perez Prado, The King of "The Mambo" in homage to the Heroic
Guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara.

The report of the CDC, of which NCM News recently received a copy,
recommends that it be required of the Puerto Rican Department of
Justice and the Civil Rights Division in Washington investigate the
case. It is dated March 11th 2011; it was reviewed September 22,
approved October 13th and certified December 5th past

NCM-CHI-SJ-NY-30-01-12-02

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