Black freedom fighters were in fact fighting a racist regime.

Black Panther founder Bobby Seal talks to Call and Post

BY KUSH AZRAEL
Staff Reporter

Campaigns, protests and rallies have brought to light that there are, in fact, Political Prisoners (PP’s) and Prisoners of War (POW’s) held in theUnited States.

Years of solitary confinement, decades of parole denials, and all-around inhumane treatment are designed to mask domestic torture by politicians, law enforcement and corrections officials, say advocates.

They also believe these actions are based on politics, not lack of prison time, threats to society or getting into trouble in prison.

Not only have PP’s/POW’s done their time, but their behavior has been exemplary.

Most political prisoners in theUnited Statesstem from the repressive and oppressive policies of the 60’s and 70’s government targeting, surveillance, infiltration, harassment, and destruction of Black Liberation and progressive organizations.

Thanks to the FBI’s counter intelligence program (COINTELPRO) every organization in theUSthat tried to bring about social change was infiltrated. Several members of the Black Panther Party (BPP), MOVE,RepublicofNew Afrika, and the Black Liberation Army were targeted by COINTELPRO for “neutralization.” Prosecutors offices were complicit in the destruction meted out by the FBI. Prosecutors routinely withheld exculpatory evidence as was the case with Geronimo JiJaga Pratt and Mumia Abu Jamal.

The case with Black Panther leader, Pratt, is a textbook example of targeting according to advocates. Pratt served 27 years for a murder he did not commit. His sentence was eventually vacated in 1997 after a relentless campaign by the late attorney Johnnie Cochran.

A former FBI agent said federal wiretaps placed Pratt hundreds of miles away from where the murders occurred.

“They [the courts] try to say they are charged with crimes and refuse to accept the definition,” said Chairman and founder of the BPP, Bobby Seale.

“It was a piece of American history that the FBI and police used fascist tactics to get rid of the BPP.

Seale is currently raising development funds for his upcoming movie “Bobby Seale: The Eighth Defendant,” and plans to donate part of the proceeds to build up a framework to free the 12 remaining BPP political prisoners.

Those interested can visit www.indiegogo.com/projects/266927.

Perhaps the best known Political Prisoner is Mumia Abu Jamal who was driving a taxi when he saw the police had his brother pulled over. In the altercation that followed a police officer was shot and killed. Jamal was shot also. However witnesses said the man who shot the officer did not look like Jamal and ballistics reports proved that the gun found on Jamal was not the same gun that killed the police officer. Yet Jamal was convicted of murder and sentenced to death row and languished there until his sentence was commuted to life without the possibility of parole last year.

Jamal was a BPP member and a MOVE sympathizer.

Nine MOVE members were sent to prison for the death of a police officer during a 1978  attack on MOVE’s home inPhiladelphia. MOVE members say it was impossible for them to have killed the officer because they were in the basement, having 40 thousand pounds of water pressure per minute. The fatal shot was reported to have come from a downward angle. The MOVE 9 have been in prison every since, except for one who died in prison. This was seven years before the police dropped a bomb on MOVE, killing 11 people (including 5 babies).

Like other liberation organizations, the US Freedom Fighters’ operations involved some confrontations with law enforcement officers and led to casualties on both sides.

The FBI and police unions have taken over the conversation by emphasizing the police lives lost and lobbying against PP’s/POW’s release. They minimize the continuous deaths and trauma, inflicted on Blacks, by unreasonable police overkill, and use their dominant media access to argue that the police deaths nullify the PP’s/POW’s purpose.

The pro PP/POW campaign has so far responded by generally focusing on proving the innocence of the many PP’s and POW’s who were framed. However there is little effort to free those who struggled outside of the law. WhatAmericahas called a “crime” is, in fact protected under international law.

UN Resolution 3103 says “combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist regimes captured as prisoners are to be accorded the status prisoners of war and their treatment should be in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention.”

Black freedom fighters were in fact fighting a racist regime.

On the occasion of a 1959 debate with total struggle advocate, Robert F. Williams, non-violence icon Martin Luther King Jr. admitted that, “when the Negro uses force in self-defense he does not forfeit support – he may even win it, by the courage and self-respect it reflects.”