Friday, August 31, 2012

JERUSALEM - A court in northern Israel ruled Tuesday that Israel and its military were not negligent in the 2003 death of a U.S. activist who was crushed by an army bulldozer. The judge called the death a "regrettable accident," and said Rachel Corrie "did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done." "She consciously put herself in harm's way," Judge Oded Gershon said, adding that the driver of the bulldozer could not have seen Corrie, 23. She was wearing a bright-orange jacket and standing between the armored vehicle and a Palestinian home to prevent its being torn down in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Fellow activists who were with Corrie have no doubt that the bulldozer driver saw her and went so far as to roll over her twice. "I believe that this was a bad day not only for our family but a bad day for human rights, for humanity, for the rule of law and also for the country of Israel," the pro-Palestinian activist's mother, Cindy Corrie of Olympia, Wash., said. There exists "a well-heeled system to protect the Israeli military, the soldiers who conduct actions in that military to provide them with impunity, at the cost of all the civilians who are impacted by what they do," she added. The State Prosecutor's office called Corrie's death, which happened at the height of the second intifada, a "tragic accident" but defended the verdict of the Haifa District Court. In a statement, it repeated the argument that the driver could not see Corrie, adding that it was "a military action in the course of war." "The security forces at the Philadelphi Corridor during 2003 were compelled to carry out 'leveling' work against explosive devices that posed a tangible danger to life and limb and were not in any form posing a threat to Palestinian homes," the statement read. "The work was done while exercising maximum caution and prudence and without the ability to foresee harming anyone." A military investigation after Corrie's death found no wrongdoing, so the Corries filed a civil suit in 2005 for the symbolic amount of $1 for the intentional and unlawful killing of Rachel. The United States has criticized Israel for failing to carry out a thorough, credible and transparent investigation, a criticism again leveled last week by the ambassador to Tel Aviv, Dan Shapiro Fellow activist Tom Dale wrote after the incident, "The bulldozer drove toward Rachel slowly, gathering earth in its scoop as it went. She knelt there, she did not move. The bulldozer reached her and she began to stand up, climbing onto the mound of earth. "All the activists were screaming at the bulldozer to stop and gesturing to the crew about Rachel's presence. We were in clear view as Rachel had been, they continued. They pushed Rachel, first beneath the scoop, then beneath the blade, then continued till her body was beneath the cockpit. They waited over her for a few seconds, before reversing. They reversed with the blade pressed down, so it scraped over her body a second time." The family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, is urging the family to take the case to Israel's Supreme Court. "This verdict is yet another example of where impunity has prevailed over accountability and fairness," he wrote in a statement. "In denying justice in Rachel Corrie's killing, this verdict speaks to the systemic failure to hold the Israeli military accountable for continuing violations of basic human rights."



JERUSALEM - A court in northern Israel ruled Tuesday that Israel and its military were not negligent in the 2003 death of a U.S. activist who was crushed by an army bulldozer.The judge called the death a "regrettable accident," and said Rachel Corrie "did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done."

"She consciously put herself in harm's way," Judge Oded Gershon said, adding that the driver of the bulldozer could not have seen Corrie, 23.

She was wearing a bright-orange jacket and standing between the armored vehicle and a Palestinian home to prevent its being torn down in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Fellow activists who were with Corrie have no doubt that the bulldozer driver saw her and went so far as to roll over her twice.
"I believe that this was a bad day not only for our family but a bad day for human rights, for humanity, for the rule of law and also for the country of Israel," the pro-Palestinian activist's mother, Cindy Corrie of Olympia, Wash., said.

There exists "a well-heeled system to protect the Israeli military, the soldiers who conduct actions in that military to provide them with impunity, at the cost of all the civilians who are impacted by what they do," she added.

The State Prosecutor's office called Corrie's death, which happened at the height of the second intifada, a "tragic accident" but defended the verdict of the Haifa District Court. In a statement, it repeated the argument that the driver could not see Corrie, adding that it was "a military action in the course of war."

"The security forces at the Philadelphi Corridor during 2003 were compelled to carry out 'leveling' work against explosive devices that posed a tangible danger to life and limb and were not in any form posing a threat to Palestinian homes," the statement read. "The work was done while exercising maximum caution and prudence and without the ability to foresee harming anyone."

A military investigation after Corrie's death found no wrongdoing, so the Corries filed a civil suit in 2005 for the symbolic amount of $1 for the intentional and unlawful killing of Rachel. The United States has criticized Israel for failing to carry out a thorough, credible and transparent investigation, a criticism again leveled last week by the ambassador to Tel Aviv, Dan Shapiro

Fellow activist Tom Dale wrote after the incident, "The bulldozer drove toward Rachel slowly, gathering earth in its scoop as it went. She knelt there, she did not move. The bulldozer reached her and she began to stand up, climbing onto the mound of earth.

"All the activists were screaming at the bulldozer to stop and gesturing to the crew about Rachel's presence. We were in clear view as Rachel had been, they continued. They pushed Rachel, first beneath the scoop, then beneath the blade, then continued till her body was beneath the cockpit. They waited over her for a few seconds, before reversing. They reversed with the blade pressed down, so it scraped over her body a second time."

The family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, is urging the family to take the case to Israel's Supreme Court.

"This verdict is yet another example of where impunity has prevailed over accountability and fairness," he wrote in a statement. "In denying justice in Rachel Corrie's killing, this verdict speaks to the systemic failure to hold the Israeli military accountable for continuing violations of basic human rights."

National Call In Day in Support of NW Grand Jury Resisters - Wed 8/29

*Call In Day- Wednesday, August 29*^*th* * : *We are asking for people to call the US Attorney again this Wednesday, August 29^th . Call Jenny Durkan at _*(800) 797-6722* _ and leave a  message with the person who answers the phone. Last call in day, they tried to send people to a voicemail box. If they attempt to do that, tell whoever you are talking to that you would like to leave a message with them and not a voicemail.

_An example of what you might say:_

“Hi. I am Jolene Seaside. I am calling about the grand jury being
impaneled in Seattle tomorrow, August 30th. This case clearly shows that
the FBI and government are persecuting political dissent in our country.
It is despicable that US attorney and the government are harassing and
intimating this group of people for their political beliefs. I demand
that the grand jury and investigation be ended immediately, that the
governments repression of social movements stop, and that any items
seized in the raids be returned. Thank you for taking my comments.”

When you call the U.S Attorney's office, please let them know that you
are speaking for yourself and not the individuals resisting the grand
jury subpoenas. Be aware of how the things you say will impact the
people you are trying to help. If you make a call, please email us
(_nopoliticalrepression@gmail.com
_) and let us know how what kind
of response you got from the Attorney's office.

On August 2^nd , we overwhelmed the US attorney's office in Washington
with phone calls demanding an end to the grand jury.* *We want to keep
up the pressure and make sure the US attorney knows we are still
standing firmly in solidarity with those resisting the grand jury.

*Thursday, August 30*^*th* *:* Come to Seattle to stand against the
Grand Jury witch hunt! There will be a demonstration in solidarity with
those affected by the raids and subpoenas starting at 12:oo pm The
demonstration will be at the federal court house, 700 Stewart St., in
Seattle.

*Can't make it to Seattle?* Plan another event or demonstration in
solidarity! Please email us at _nopoliticalrepression@gmail.com
_ to tell us about your event

or attend one of these solidarity events:

*Portland, Oregon:* Come show resistance to state repression and
solidarity with those whose backs are against the way. 12:30 to 3:30 pm
at the Federal Court House (1000 SW 3^rd Ave).
https://www.facebook.com/events/401156179937499/

*Minneapolis, MN: *A rally in solidarity with Northwest/Midwest grand
jury resistors and
local Occupy Homes organizers. 12-1pm at City Hall (350 S 5th St).
http://twincitiesantirepression.tumblr.com/post/30111358127/a30-solidarity-against-state-repression

*Please donate! *There is a “Donate” tab on our website
_http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/_. We are trying to raise
legal fees for all of those affected. We also are trying to provide
material support for those that are resisting the grand jury.

Please keep checking our website for updates:
_http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/_. If you have questions,
email us at _nopoliticalrepression@gmail.com
_.

!Antifascista ruso detenido en Madrid! - Russian writer and antifascist Pjotr Silajev is still arrested in Madrid -

Spanish below

Russian writer and antifascist Pjotr Silajev is still arrested in Madrid

Silajev had been granted a political asylum in Finland early this year.
The Finnish embassy in Madrid has said that Silajev can be kept arrested
for 40 days! The Spanish police arrested Silajev in Granada because of
request from Interpol on the 21st of august. Contrary to the
expectations, he was not released in a trial in Madrid on the 22nd of
august, even though the Finnish embassy had provided all the papers
concerning his asylum and right to stay in the country. The court
wouldnt comment the case. The Spanish police said that he only had a
Russian passport when he was arrested. It is not clear how the Finnish
state will react to the arrest.

The Moscow Times interviewed Tanya Lokshina from The Human Rights
Watch, who said that the Spanish state does not have to take into
concideration the asylum from Finland and are free to send him back to
Russia. This does not seem possible. The Finnish YLE news has
interviewed the head of the immigration office Esko Repo who said that
all the European Union countries are committed to not sending people to
countries where they might face prosecution.

The lawyer of Silajev said the situation looks bad.

The Moscow Times said that the hardening line of the Russian government
towards protests can lead to even more cases where people need to flee
the country. The case of Silajev can be connected to other cases where
people who had fled the country have been tried to be sent back.

Silajev was granted asylum from Finland in april of this year. The
reason was the continuing political prosecution in Russia. The Russian
Federation wants him convicted for demonstrations against a highway in
the Khimki region outside Moscow. Among other protests, the house of the
city council was attacked and some people throw stones and fireworks in
the building in 2010.

The hunt of Silajev seems to be the last resort for the prosecutor to
convict someone from the Khimki protests. Last year Aleksey Gaskarov,
who was arrested for months, was releassed of all charges and Maxim
Solopov received a two year sentence for hooliganism. The third suspect
Denis Solopov has received an asylum from the Netherlands.

The Moscow Times have said that the mayor of Khimki Vladimir
Strelchenko resigned last week because of pressure from the new governor
of Moscow. Strelchenko is suspected of organising attacks against the
protesters who were resisting the building of the highway.

We are asking for solidarity from our comrades in Madrid and other
parts of the Spanish state! Support our anarchist and antifascist comrade!

Spread the word!

Taken from Finnish anarchist web page Takku.net

http://takku.net/article.php/20120824021656685

(via
https://avtonom.org/en/news/russian-writer-and-antifasAcist-pjotr-silajev-still-arrested-madrid)

!Antifascista ruso detenido en Madrid!


El escritor antifascista ruso, Pjotr Silajev continua detenido en
Madrid. Silajev había conseguido asilo político en Finlandia a principios
de año. La embajada Finlandesa en Madrid ha declarado que Silajev puede
seguir retenido hasta 40 días. La policía española detuvo a Silajev en
Granada bajo una orden de la
Interpol, interpuesta el 21 de agosto. Tras su traslado a Madrid,
contrariamente a lo esperado, no fue puesto en libertad condicional al día
siguiente, a pesar de que la embajada finlandesa le había proporcionado
todos los papeles necesarios para garantizar su asilo y el derecho a estar
en el país. El juez no aceptó recursos al respecto. La policía por su parte
dice que Silajev tan solo tenía un pasaporte ruso cuando fue detenido.
Todavía
está por ver cuál será la reacción del Estado finlandés.

The Moscow Times entrevistó a Tanya Lokshina de The Human Rights Watch,
quien declaró que el Estado español no tiene la obligación de considerar el
asilo otorgado por Finlandia, pudiendo enviar al activista antifascista
directamente de vuelta a Rusia. Ésto no parece ser cierto. El canal
finlandés de noticias YLE ha entrevistado a Esko Repo, director de la
oficina de inmigración, que ha explicado como todos los países de la Unión
Europea tienen el compromiso de no enviar personas de vuelta a países donde
puedan ser perseguidas por motivos políticos.

El abogado de Silajev dice que la situación pinta mal.

Según The Moscow Times, la creciente represión por parte del gobierno ruso
contra protestas y disidentes puede llevar a muchos más ciudadanos viéndose
obligados a huir del país. El caso de Silajev no está aislado; puede
conectarse con muchas otras historias de personas que, habiendo huído del
país, fueron perseguidas con la intención de enviarlas de vuelta a Rusia.

Silajev obtuvo asilo en Finlandia en abril del presente año. El motivo fue
la continua persecución política que estaba sufriendo en Rusia. La
Federación Rusa quiere encarcelarlo por las manifestaciones en contra de la
construcción de una autopista en la región de Khimki, a las afueras de
Moscú. Entre otras acciones, el ayuntamiento de la ciudad de Khimki fue
atacado con piedras y petardos en 2010.

La caza de Silajev parece ser el último recurso del fiscal para intentar
seguir criminalizando las protestas de Khimki. El año pasado el activista
Aleksey Gaskarov, tras pasar varios meses detenido, fue puesto en libertad
sin cargos mientras que Maxim Solopov, otro presunto implicado en las
acciones, fue condenado a dos años de cárcel bajo el cargo de
“hooliganismo”. El tercer sospechoso, Denis Solopov, ha recibido asilo
político en Holanda.

The Moscow Times ha publicado recientemente la dimisión del alcalde de
Khimki, Vladimir Strelchenko, que abandonó su cargo debido a presiones del
nuevo gobernador de Moscú. Stretchenko es sospechoso de haber organizado
ataques, realizados por mercenarios y grupos neonazis, contra la acampada
de manifestantes que resistía y bloqueaba la construcción de la autopista.

¡Pedimos solidaridad a nuestros compañeros de Madrid y otras partes del
Estado español! ¡Apoyo para nuestro compañero antifascista y anarquista!

¡Pásalo!

Extraído y traducido de la página web anarquista finlandesa Takku.net”


http://takku.net/article.php/20120824021656685

The Secret Scheme To Sabotage Abu-Jamal's Appeal Rights

Aug. 24, 2012 This Can't Be Happening
 
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the internationally recognized American political prisoner, thwarted a Philadelphia judge’s secretive court order that could have eliminated his future appeal rights when he filed a last- minute motion on August 23rd challenging that order sentencing him to life-without-parole.

Most supporters and detractors of Abu-Jamal had been expecting the formal conversion of his controversial death sentence to life-without-parole in the wake of a federal appeals court’s second and final rejection of requests from Philadelphia prosecutors to keep Abu-Jamal on death row back in April 2011.

What was unexpected by Abu-Jamal supporters were the procedures surrounding the secretive court order, which appears to have violated a number of Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Abu-Jamal’s Pro Se Motion for Post Sentence Relief and Reconsideration of Sentence referenced Rule 720 of Pennsylvania’s Criminal Procedure which states in part that defendants shall “have the right” to make post-sentence motion but that motion must be filed “no later than 10 days after imposition of sentence.”

That secretly issued resentencing order occurred on August 13, 2012, exactly ten days before Abu-Jamal filed his motion.

If that ten-day filing period had expired, undiscovered due to secrecy-shrouded issuance of the resentencing order about which no public notice or notice was provided to Abu-Jamal and his legal team, his legal ability to challenge his continued confinement would have been damaged, including his probable loss of future appeal rights.
Mumia, off death row but fighting to escape life in prison, with attorney Rachel Wolkenstein and his wife Wadiya Jamal 
Mumia, off death row but fighting to escape life in prison, with attorney Rachel Wolkenstein and his wife Wadiya Jamal
 
Court rules and common decency require notice of court actions -- both pending and actually taken.
“This is the same backdoor stuff that’s always done to him,” a Mumia attorney, Rachel Wolkenstein, said during an interview outside of Philadelphia’s Criminal Justice Center after delivering Abu-Jamal’s motion.
Philadelphia Preident Judge Judy "Take the Law Into Your Hands" Dembe with her husband 
Philadelphia Preident Judge Judy "Take the Law Into Your Hands" Dembe with her husband

Wolkenstein, who has worked on Abu-Jamal's case for over two decades, uncovered that secretly issued judicial order.

She became aware of it during a routine inspection of Philadelphia court records checking to see when a resentencing would occur.

Wolkenstein immediately informed Abu-Jamal and his legal team, all of whom were unaware of the order.

Wolkenstein then made two trips to the Pennsylvania prison holding Abu-Jamal, the last trip to bring Abu-Jamal's Motion to the Philadelphia court house a few hours before that ten-day filing deadline expired.

Rule 114(b)(1) of Pennsylvania’s Rules of Criminal Procedure states that a “copy of any order or court notice promptly shall be served on each party’s attorney…” –- procedures apparently not followed in this resentencing of Abu-Jamal.

Another provision of those Procedures, Rule 704, states the sentencing judge must advise a defendant “of the time within which defendant must exercise” their right to appeal and other post-sentencing matters.

“A number of death sentences have been reversed in Pennsylvania and the person's given life sentences. As far as I know each of those persons received more formal proceeding than what happened here,” Wolkenstein said.

Rule 114(A)(2) of Pennsylvania’s Criminal Procedure states that “all orders and court notices promptly shall be placed in the criminal case file.”

Yet Wolkenstein said when she asked Philadelphia court clerks for the resentencing file days after the order’s issuance, court clerks told her there was no file containing a record of that resentencing.
Philadelphia Court Clerk officials, when contacted for comment, requested that questions be made in a written format for review by their lawyers. Those officials did not reply to the submitted questions by the time of this article’s posting.

Another factor further obscuring that resentencing order, Wolkenstein said, is that the court docket captioned under the birth name Abu-Jamal -- Wesley Cook -- hasn’t been used since the late 1960s.
The majority of court files and court rulings (state and federal) list the name Abu-Jamal not Cook, thus persons examining court files generally look for Abu-Jamal and not the name Cook.
The perverse procedures swirling around that resentencing order were not unusual, given the legal improprieties and other irregularities that have stained Abu-Jamal’s case since his December 1981 arrest for killing a Philadelphia policeman.

Philadelphia’s President Judge, Pamela P. Dembe, resentenced Abu-Jamal to life-without-parole on August 13th, according to sketchy Philadelphia court docket documents.

Those documents state that Dembe was acting in accordance with a December 2001 order from a federal district court judge who voided Abu-Jamal’s death sentence after ruling that the judge at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 murder trial had incorrectly instructed the jury on how to conduct its death penalty deliberation.

“Nothing in that federal ruling says it’s OK for no notice and no record in the resentencing,” Wolkenstein said, questioning the legality of the resentencing.

Abu-Jamal, despite having his death sentence vacated in 2001, remained in death-row isolation until December 2011 because the federal judge that eliminated his death sentence granted a punitive request from Philadelphia prosecutors to keep Abu-Jamal on death row while they appealed that judge’s ruling -- a process that took ten years.

Abu-Jamal's Motion cites the fact that he wrongfully spent nearly thirty-years in death row isolation on a sentence federal courts ruled was illegal. His supporters, like Wolkenstein, cite that illegal death row incarceration as fact enough to release this man whose published six critically acclaimed books and over a thousand commentaries while on death row.

Philadelphia prosecutors pursued two unsuccessful appeals in federal appeals court seeking unsuccessfully to reinstate the death sentence that was vacated in 2001. There were also two efforts going up to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to uphold an execution.

In early December 2011 Philadelphia prosecutors announced that they were no longer appealing those federal appellate court rulings, thus ending their effort to execute Abu-Jamal.
But Pennsylvania prison authorities, instead of removing Abu-Jamal totally from solitary confinement in compliance with those long-delayed federal court rulings at that point, initially simply shifted him from death row to the more draconian isolation of administrative custody.
Prison officials advanced ever-changing rationales for keeping Abu-Jamal in administrative custody, including the Kafkaesque claim that they needed legal clarification that courts had formally replaced Abu-Jamal’s death sentence with life in prison.

Prison officials, in January 2012, facing international protests, finally relented and released Abu-Jamal from isolation into general population.

Judge Dembe’s secretive resentencing is in concert with earlier improprieties that have stalked all facets of Abu-Jamal’s arrest, trial, appeals and imprisonment.

Philadelphia police, for example, right from the moment of Abu-Jamal's arrest at the scene of the shootings, failed to perform the standard test to prove Abu-Jamal had even fired the pistol that police said he used to kill the officer.

One of the gravest yet least examined improprieties occurred on the eve of a pivotal 1995 appeal hearing when then then Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge issued a death warrant on Abu-Jamal.
That warrant was issued because lawyers in Ridge’s office had secretly and unlawfully intercepted correspondence between Abu-Jamal and his lawyers, and discovered the date they planned for the filing of their client’s appeal.

That Ridge-issued death warrant severely disrupted Abu-Jamal’s appeal proceeding, forcing Abu-Jamal’s defense team to fight the warrant while simultaneously preparing for the appeal hearing.
The execution date was also used by the appeal hearing judge -- Albert Sabo, who had also been the judge at Abu-Jamal's original murder trial -- as a justification for unduly speeding that hearing. That gratuitous rush Sabo ordered further constrained defense efforts by limiting their ability to locate and bring in witnesses.

Additionally, issuance of that death warrant was improper because Abu-Jamal had a constitutional right to that 1995 appeal of his death sentence before an execution could take place.
Federal and state courts have persistently ignored that glaringly improper intervention by Ridge, which effectively robbed Abu-Jamal’s of a key step in his appeal rights -- the right to have a fact-finding review of his flawed 1982 trial and to introduce new evidence of innocence.
Significantly, Judge Dembe is the same jurist who years ago rejected compelling evidence that the judge in Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial had made a racist, prosecution-favoring admission on the eve of the proceeding.

A court stenographer had come foreward and announced that she had, back in 1982 during the jury selection phase of the trial, overheard that trial judge, the infamous Albert Sabo, declare to his court aide that he was going to help prosecutors “fry the nigger,” a clear reference to Abu-Jamal.
Racist and/or pro-prosecution bias by a judge is forbidden by Supreme Court rulings and by Pennsylvania’s Code of Judicial Conduct, not to mention basic principles of Common Law.
Yet, Dembe refused to take testimony from the stenographer to determine the veracity of allegations from that woman, who hails from a family of police officers.

Dembe, in a ruling exhibiting ridiculous reasoning, claimed Sabo’s racist, pro-prosecution rant was immaterial to Abu-Jamal’s conviction because, she opined, a jury not Sabo convicted Abu-Jamal.
Dembe’s fundamentally flawed assertion pretended that Sabo, as trial judge, did not influence the course of the trial in a series of sabotaging actions like stripping Abu-Jamal of his right to represent himself at trial just days before testimony began (and sending his defense into a tail-spin), withholding favorable Abu-Jamal evidence from jurors, and even selecting a juror for duty who had honestly admitted to being solidly biased against Abu-Jamal.

The injustice in Abu-Jamal’s long-running case has elicited condemnation from numerous entities as diverse as Amnesty International, the NAACP and the City Council of Munich, Germany.
The injustice evident in Abu-Jamal’s case is consistent with the injustice exhibited daily by some Philadelphia police, prosecutors and judges.

The same day Abu-Jamal filed his resentence-challenging motion, a Philadelphia judge convicted Philadelphia broadcaster Jeff Hart of disorderly conduct for a minor incident arising from Hart's observing police brutality during the arrest of a suspect near Hart’s house.

Hart said the false disorderly conduct charge followed his politely asking a Philadelphia policeman to not use profanity repeatedly when ordering Hart and another man from the arrest scene.
Abu-Jamal, an award-winning broadcast journalist at the time of his 1981 arrest, frequently reported on this kind of rampant police abuse in Philadelphia.

A Move to Free the Cuban Five

Aug. 24, 2012 Counterpunch
by DANNY GLOVER and SAUL LANDAU

People stop in Victorville California 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles because they have to see someone at one of its several prisons (federal, state, county and city) or have prison-related business, or because they’re hot and tired coming back from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and the thought of a swimming pool and an air conditioned room seem irresistible.

We book rooms so we can get to the prison early and spend more time with Gerardo Hernandez. We know the way from Highway 15 west into rolling desert hills from whence one sees a massive gray concrete structure – the federal penitentiary complex.

We fill out the forms, pass through the X-ray machine, get patted down by a guard, get our wrists stamped with indelible ink that shows up under a scanner in the next room, and by 8:45 we are seated in the Visiting room, with black and Latino wives and kids who are seeing husbands and daddies.
Gerardo emerges; we hug and start talking. He told us that Martin Garbus, his lawyer, had filed a new writ (available at www.thecuban5.org) declaring Gerardo’s trial violated basic law and the

Constitution, and should be voided – freeing him and his comrades from their long sentences.
Documents show, according to the brief, that the U.S. government paid a host of Miami-based journalists to file negative stories on Gerardo and his fellow defendants (The Cuban 5). These U.S. government paid-for stories appeared in newspapers, magazines, radio and TV and influenced public opinion in the community, including jury members and their families, the writ argues, and therefore calls into deep question whether a fair trial in Miami was possible for the five accused men.

The brief states that the U.S. “government’s successful secret subversion of the Miami print, radio, and television media to pursue a conviction was unprecedented,” and “violated the integrity of the trial and the Due Process Clause of the Constitution.”

Garbus further argues that “The Government, through millions of dollars of illegal payments and at least a thousand articles published over a six-year period, interfered with the trial and persuaded the jury to convict. The Government’s Response to this motion is factually barren and legally incorrect. The conviction must now be vacated.”

In the lengthy brief, Garbus shows how journalists wrote and spoke for news outlets for the sole purpose of painting a distorted picture of what the defendants were doing, which was trying to prevent Miami-based terrorism in Cuba, and instead, as Garbus’ brief shows, to portray them as military spies trying to prepare south Florida for a military invasion from Cuba.

The Miami Herald fired the journalists on the grounds they had broken a basic code – taking money from the government to write stories. The brief states that “Thomas Fiedler, the Executive Editor and Vice President of The Miami Herald, when talking about the monies paid to his staff members and members of other media entities by the Government, said it was wrongful because it was “to carry out the mission of the U.S. Government, a propaganda mission. It was wrong even if it had not been secret.” It was secret because the government officials knew it wrong and illegal.

Gerardo and four companions have served almost 14 years in federal lock up for trying to stop right wing Miami thugs from bombing Havana. In 1997, a series of bombs hit hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs. One tourist died and many Cuban workers in these establishments were wounded. The bombings were orchestrated by Luis Posada Carriles, resident of Miami today, and financed by right wing exile money.

As we sat in the visiting room surrounded by mostly people of color, with four guards watching us and the other visitors, we nibbled on salted snacks from the vending machine (“prison gourmet”).
Gerardo told us about his time in “the hole,” for no bad behavior on his part, but for his “protection”! He spoke of deprivation of the routine monotony. “Look around,” he said, “you don’t see a lot of middle class people here. There were none. Most of the prisoners were black or Latino, plus one who Gerardo thought was a descendent of poor Okies. All share a lack of money to hire good lawyers.

“I was transferred here from Lompoc in 2004 because Lompoc was not going to be a maximum security prison any more,” Gerardo told us. As if this cultured, disciplined man needed maximum security. We wondered how we would endure the punishment of imprisonment in a supposedly correctional and rehabilitative institution, where no correction or rehabilitation takes place.

We drove from the prison to the Ontario airport and asked ourselves: What, we asked ourselves, was a well-educated Cuban man doing in such a place? The U.S. government knew the Cuban agents had infiltrated Cuban exile groups that intended to cause damage to Cuba’s tourist economy. The five were fighting terrorism and sharing information with the FBI. They should never have been charged and now, almost 14 years of prison later, they should at last be freed.

President Obama could and should pardon them and send them home. Cuba has indicated it would respond by freeing Alan Gross, who worked for a company contracted to USAID with a design to destabilize the Cuban government and was convicted in Cuba. It’s time for President Obama to put this issue on his agenda.

Danny Glover is an activist and actor.
 
Saul Landau’s WILL THE REAL TERRORIST PLASE STAND UP plays in Portland Sept. 12, Clinton Theater and Toronto Sept. 21.

Oakland, Sept 9 4pm - Richard Aoki - Cointelpro & Reclaiming the Legacy

*Richard Aoki - Black Panther & Asian American Activist*

*Cointelpro Attacks & Reclaiming the Legacy*

*Sunday, September 9th 4-6 pm*

EastSide Cultural Center
2277 International Blvd
Oakland

*with Diane Fujino,
Emory Douglas, Tarika Lewis
& Bobby Seale *

Cosponsored By EastSide Arts Alliance and the Freedom Archives
for more information call: 510-533-6629 or 415 863-9977

Letters for the Cuban 5

The Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5
www.freethecuban5.com
freethecuban5@gmail.com
718-601-4751
Cuban 5 Pressure Campaign

Support the Cuban 5!!

Due to the U.S. government’s denial to approve visas, Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo and
Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert have not seen their wives since their incarceration!! Others
in the Cuban 5 have not seen their parents, wives and children with regularity. The
U.S. government has taken prolonged periods of time to issue them visas.

The U.S. government’s denial of visitation rights is a cruel and horrible form of
psychological torture. Their rationale for denial is ridiculous and baseless; none
of these family members are a threat to national security.

We are asking people to fax or mail out this letter to Ms. Navanetham Pillay, The
NEW High Commissioner of Human Rights of the Office for Human Rights-United Nations
Office at Geneva. We are asking her to intercede on behalf of the Cuban 5’s
mothers/wives to pressure the U.S. government to grant them VISAs to visit their
husbands/sons!!

Sign it and mail/fax to:


Ms. Navanetham Pillay, High Commissioner of Human Rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights-United Nations Office at Geneva

8-14 Avenue de la Paix 1211

Geneva 10, Switzerland

Fax: + 41 22 917 9011


Letter to High Commissioner


FREE THE CUBAN 5 MONTH SEPT. 12TH-OCT. 12TH!


Sat. Sept. 22nd, 2012 at 2pm

The Brecht Forum 451 West Street (Between. Bank and Bethune Sts.)
A, C, E or L to 14th Street & 8th Ave, walk down 8th Ave. to Bethune, turn right,
walk west to the River and turn left.
Suggested donation: $5-10 (no one will be turned away for lack of funds)


Free the Cuban 5 Film Series!


As part of our ongoing efforts to educate about Cuba, the Cuban 5, and the Cuban
political system, The Popular
Education Project to Free the Cuban 5 is hosting this film screening as part of
“Free the Cuban 5 Month!”

Join us for South of the Border, a film by Oliver Stone!


Film Synopsis:

There’s a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn’t know
it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social
and political movements as well as the mainstream media’s misperception of South
America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual

conversations with Presidents Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula
da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and
ex-President Nėstor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and
Raúl Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the
exciting transformations in the region.

The Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5:
For more information on the Cuban 5 please contact: freethecuban5@gmail.com or
718-601-4751

Visit our website: www.FreetheCuban5.com







































Support the Cuban 5!!




Due to the U.S. government’s denial to approve visas, Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo and
Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert have not seen their wives since their incarceration!! Others
in the Cuban 5 have not seen their parents, wives and children with regularity. The
U.S. government has taken prolonged periods of time to issue them visas.

The U.S. government’s denial of visitation rights is a cruel and horrible form of
psychological torture. Their rationale for denial is ridiculous and baseless; none
of these family members are a threat to national security.


We are asking people to fax or mail out this letter to Ms. Navanetham Pillay, The
NEW High Commissioner of Human Rights of the Office for Human Rights-United Nations
Office at Geneva. We are asking her to intercede on behalf of the Cuban 5’s
mothers/wives to pressure the U.S. government to grant them VISAs to visit their
husbands/sons!!

Sign it and mail/fax to:


Ms. Navanetham Pillay, High Commissioner of Human Rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights-United Nations Office at Geneva

8-14 Avenue de la Paix 1211

Geneva 10, Switzerland

Fax: + 41 22 917 9011


Letter to High Commissioner








FREE THE CUBAN 5 MONTH SEPT. 12TH-OCT. 12TH!






Sat. Sept. 22nd, 2012 at 2pm

The Brecht Forum 451 West Street (Between. Bank and Bethune Sts.)
A, C, E or L to 14th Street & 8th Ave, walk down 8th Ave. to Bethune, turn right,
walk west to the River and turn left.
Suggested donation: $5-10 (no one will be turned away for lack of funds)


Free the Cuban 5 Film Series!


As part of our ongoing efforts to educate about Cuba, the Cuban 5, and the Cuban
political system, The Popular
Education Project to Free the Cuban 5 is hosting this film screening as part of
“Free the Cuban 5 Month!”

Join us for South of the Border, a film by Oliver Stone!


Film Synopsis:

There’s a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn’t know
it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social
and political movements as well as the mainstream media’s misperception of South
America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual

conversations with Presidents Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula
da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and
ex-President Nėstor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and
Raúl Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the
exciting transformations in the region.




The Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5:
For more information on the Cuban 5 please contact: freethecuban5@gmail.com or
718-601-4751

Visit our website: www.FreetheCuban5.com








The Habeas Corpus of Gerardo Hernandez

August 23, 2012 | Havanna Times

The photos of the five Cuban agents are part of the island’s landscape. Photo: Raquel Perez

HAVANA TIMES — UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, officially expressed her concern over the lack of transparency and the legal procedures employed in the trials of five Cuban agents arrested in the US over a decade ago.

Apparently the prosecution and the judge played with cards up their sleeves by preventing the defense from having “access to all available evidence and documentary archives.” This was a violation of procedures so elementary that it even appears in TV series.

But the procedural mistakes don’t stop there. According to the UN rapporteur, the habeas corpus writ presented by the defense is being reviewed “by the same judge who was previously in charge of the case,” thereby making her the judge and the jury.

To top it all off, the hand of the US government can be seen in its pressuring of the courts for tougher sentences. Before and during the trial, several journalists in Miami received money to write articles against the five Cuban agents.

It really doesn’t seem legal for the executive branch to exert influence over the judiciary, nor is it very ethical for a journalist to agree to receive money from the government in exchange for writing articles to influence the outcome of an ongoing trial.

US attorney Martin Garbus says that between 1998-2001 an arsenal of propaganda was received by the Miami community through print, radio and television — paid for by the government — to interfere with the trail and to persuade the jury.

According to Garbus, fifteen journalists received money to write against the five agents. Apparently some received their funds secretly, with not even their media outlets knowing that they were working for another more generous employer. For this, one of the reporters was paid $175,000 USD.

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) of the US government was forced to admit to the accusation when reporter Oscar Corral revealed that 50 of his colleagues in Florida were paid by government-funded Radio Marti for articles supporting the position of the US Department of State against Cuba.

The scandal was such that Jesus Diaz, the editor of the largest newspaper in Miami, fired several journalists claiming that the press can’t “ensure objectivity and integrity if any of our reporters receive monetary compensation from any entity, especially a government agency.”
Gerardo Hernandez
The head of the Cuban agents, Gerardo Hernandez, was sentenced to two life sentences. Photo: Taken from Cubadebate

Despite the harsh words of the editor, this lack of ethics and professionalism seem not to have been considered too serious because a few months later several of those journalists returned to their old jobs, writing as if nothing had ever happened.

Certainly, there have been so many legal and ethical anomalies that make it seem logical for UN Rapporteur Gabriela Knaul to look askance at the independence of the judges in this case. Just the same, one would have expected such occurrences given the place where the trial was held.

Miami is a city where Cuban exiles have enormous political, economic and media power. It was highly unlikely to obtain a fair verdict in relation to these five agents who confessed to monitoring and reporting to Cuba on the activities of [terrorist figures] within that same community.

The atmosphere in Miami surpasses even their hatred of Fidel Castro and extends to citizens who live on the island. In the largest newspaper in the city diatribes appear ensuring that any relaxation of tensions “will have to be built by the submissive Cubans living on the island.”

The island’s residents are described as “those who have endured everything, who collaborated with everything, who have beaten Cuban dissidents, those who have betrayed their compatriots, who have tortured them, who have thrown them into the sea, and who have spent fifty years filling Fidel’s Revolution Square applauding and sniffing his ass.”

But it seems that the natural environment of that city wasn’t enough for Washington, so they decided that their official information apparatus would “burn up” hundreds of thousands of dollars to further inflame the situation and create a bonfire through the press.

In such an environment, Gerardo Hernandez was sentenced to two life sentences, ensuring that he would remain behind bars even if reincarnated in another life. Now his defense is demanding a fair trial in an unbiased city and without pressure from governmental or media campaigns.

The issue is worrisome even to the United Nations, because — as American lawyer Martin Garbus has expressed — “every dollar for every article, photo or radio or television program that was spent on this secret program violated the integrity of the trial.”
—–
(*) An authorized translation by Havana Times (from the Spanish original) published by BBC Mundo.

Mumia supporters rally around the cause to end prison abuses

Aug 23, 2012 Amsterdam News

7 Detainees Injured In Ramon Prison, Several Sent To Solitary Confinement

  Thursday August 23, 2012  by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies 
The detainees clashed with the soldiers for approximately two hours after the army tried to force them to undergo a strip search in Ramon prison. Seven detainees were injured, and several detainees were sent to solitary confinement.
File - PNN
File - PNN

Palestinian Minister of detainees, Issa Qaraqe’, reported that the soldiers punched the detainees and hit them with batons before using gas against them.

The army also cut power and water supplies before completely isolating sections 6 and 7; the army said that the two sections will remain isolated for a minimum of two days.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) issued a press release identifying seven of wounded detainees were identified as; (Fateh movement spokesperson) Moayyad Jaradat, Raed Balawna, Fawwaz Abdeen, Montaser Saif, Assaf Zahran, Motawakkel Radwan and Mohammad Abu Sharqiyya. They were all placed in solitary confinement.

The prison administration said that the wounded detainees will be sent to court and will be facing “criminal charges” allegedly for attacking Israeli soldiers.

The PPS said that the detainees returned their meals in protest to the latest escalation and attack against them.

It added that representatives of the prison administration sat down with the representative of the detainees, in Ramon, Jamal Rajpoub, to discuss the latest incident, and decided to hold another meeting on Friday.

Rajoub said that “what happened in Ramon is a compliance with what, Ben Caspet, an Israeli journalist said, who described the Palestinian political prisoners as pigs”, the PPS reported.

The PPS said that there are 760 Palestinian detainees held in Ramon Prison, including 500 detainees who were sentenced to at least one life term, and that the prison has 7 sections; 15 rooms in each section, each room has eight detainees held in it.

Qaddoura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, held the Israeli Prison Authority responsible for the lives and well-being of the detainees, and said that this attack is an act of revenge against the detainees.

Fares called for the immediate protection for the detainees, and urged the International Community to intervene and stop the ongoing Israeli attacks and violations against them.

Updated From

8 Detainees Wounded In Ramon Prison
Saed Bannoura, IMEMC & Agencies - Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:28:19

Palestinians Minister of Detainee, Issa Qaraqe’, stated that initial information revealed that eight Palestinian detainees, imprisoned at the Ramon Israeli prison, were injured after Israeli soldiers broke into their rooms and searched them.

Qaraqe’ said that under-cover forces of the Israeli army broke into section #6 in Ramon under the pretext of searching it.

The soldiers tried to force the detainees to undergo a strip-search but they refused. Soldiers then attacked them leading to clashes that resulted in eight injuries among the detainees, the Palestine News Network (PNN) reported.

The soldiers used gas bombs, and struck the detainees with batons targeting different parts of their bodies. They went on to seal section 6 and disconnected its power and water supplies.

Qaraqe’ held Israel responsible for the lives of the detainees and their well-being, and called on the international community to provide the needed protection to the detainees and to stop Israel’s ongoing violations against them.

Lee Lew Lee on Richard Aoki

I once heard Dick Gregory say...

"Thousand points of light? Shit. That's not power. Now when the Sun
rises in the morning and knocks darkness clear out the sky... Now...
That's Power!"

Richard Aoki has always been held in the highest esteem by everyone--and
I mean by every last comrade who knew him--and that should be good
enough for everyone.

For me, there are two ways to look at this allegation made by Seth
Rosenfeld.

Either, Richard used his knowledge of the system to game the system and
fucked up an old and dead FBI agent who was trying to settle an old
final score from back in the day. (Maybe he was the ONE guy who
successfully double-crossed the agent?)?

Or it was an attempt to smear his name in the 60s that lay dormant as a
document time bomb, only to be misunderstood 44 years later.

Wes Swearingen, who was cited, is (I feel) a well-intentioned man of
conscience, whose honest testimony freed Geronimo Pratt.

From what I read in this flurry of accusations by the Rosenfeld, though,
Swearingen may have been merely analyzing the specific documents given
to him to see if the Bureau actually produced them. Period.

Frankly, if they had any specific context that is now long gone,
especially if the other agent mentioned in the story said he had not
seen Aoki since '65, and we are presuming this is many years later.

We must remember that people were 'bad jacketed' all the time back in
the day and these documents may have been from a result to do the same
back in say 1968-9.

Regarding his weapons, I have no clue... and think that is perhaps way
over blown. However, I do know that he was the one that brought the Red
Book into the Party, and no matter what one may feel about that, it
absolutely changed the course of the struggle. That is history, and
certainly led to many things, pro and con, that will be debated for many
years to come. Again, put this into historical context. Remember, this
was 1968. That was an early period in the BPP.

I say that because 20/20 hindsight can be a terrible thing when taken
completely out of context. I cannot personally accept anything said
about anyone "back in the day" unless it is verifiably documented. Not
hearsay from a man who was an enemy of the movement and is dead today.
People must remember to check the SOURCE.

Personally, I never heard anything bad from anyone in the party in the
day about the comrade and was shocked to hear these allegations. To my
point of view, if he was dirty, people would have been suspicious back
in the day, as we always said that 'actions are the criterion of truth'

Remember it WAS 43-44 years ago and the brother is not now here to speak
for himself or defend himself, so this is manifestly unfair... and I
imagine that this was written by someone who never was in the real
struggle back then.

We will all find out in the next life who was for real and who was a
fake... if you believe that this life was not by accident... then the
final judge(s) will be a lot more powerful than we are. That is for sure.

There was Field Marshal Aoki, my brother Guy Kurose in Seattle and
myself as the only 3 bona fide Asian members in the BPP, and we all came
out of the Asian American movement.

Bro. Richard, I only met once in the late 90s and I felt he was a fine
brother when I met him, and now he is gone. I did not even know that he
had passed until this came up yesterday.

Guy Kurose I first met in '69 and we were life long friends when he died
of cancer in 2002. Guy worked with the gang youth until his dying
breath. I will always be happy and honored to know him

I went blind with the tumor and aneurysm in 2003 and had my 2 corrective
brain surgeries on the first day of the Iraq war.

Guess I am the only one left of the 3 of us, and that is a very heavy
feeling, today. There were so many who gave their lives so that the most
basic things could be done for the human rights of all poor and
oppressed people nationwide.

We must always think about how to help the poor and oppressed and fight
prejudice, and the shit-stem of apartheid... no matter what our position
in life. That is our obligation.

Every society, so called civilization, is only as good as the condition
of it's poorest people and deepest attempts to eradicate poverty,
exploitation and massive suffering.

I am sure that Brother Richard Aoki demonstrably and sincerely dedicated
the vast majority of his life and his every living thought to achieve
the overcoming of racism, poverty and inequality, without giving up.

Those who fought and died in the 50s- 60s for US human rights were not
Gods and having been there does not make us Gods. Those who died were
usually motivated by love as the reason for risking their lives to fight
for the simplest things that today this entire nation takes for granted.

If we look at the balance of a person's life and it was lived totally
without duplicity, we must take that person for their word. I think
Richard was indeed, exactly who he claimed to be, who is exactly what
people back in the day of the struggle also knew him to be: a dedicated,
brilliant revolutionary.

If people were proven liars and grand standing opportunists 'back in the
day'... Then they would now be remembered as such by the survivors who
worked with them in the field back in the day.

That final judgement is certainly not the place of authors who were
never there in the 60s U.S. human rights struggle, never shed blood,
sweat nor hard bitter, excruciatingly painful tears for all the fallen
comrades, tears that often flowed yesterday... and we often try to
forget today.

August 21, 2012 Lee Lew-lee (Harlem Chapter of the Black Panther Party,
known in 1969 as Comrade Tsing), and director of the documentary film
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Was Bay Area Radical, Black Panther Arms Supplier Richard Aoki an Informant for the FBI?

Aug. 23, 2012 Democracy Now



Explosive new allegations have emerged that the man who gave the Black Panther Party some of its first firearms and weapons training was an undercover FBI informant in California. Richard Aoki, who died in 2009, was an early member of the Panthers and the only Asian American to have a formal position in the group. The claim that Aoki informed on his colleagues is based on statements made by a former bureau agent and an FBI report obtained by investigative journalist Seth Rosenfeld, author of the new book, "Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power." But Aoki’s friends and colleagues, as well as scholars, have challenged the book’s findings. We speak to Rosenfeld, an award-winning journalist and author of the article, "Man Who Armed Black Panthers was FBI Informant, Records Show," published by the Center for Investigative Reporting, and to Diana Fujino, Aoki’s biographer and a professor and chair of the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. [includes rush transcript]
Guests:
Seth Rosenfeld, author of the new book, Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals,and Reagan’s Rise to Power. Rosenfeld was an award-winning a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle for almost 25 years.
Diane Fujino, professor and chair of the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her most recent book is Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life.

Where's the evidence Aoki was FBI informant?

 
Diane C. Fujino
 Wednesday, August 22, 2012 SF Gate.com
Seth Rosenfeld's dramatic announcement that Richard Aoki was an FBI informant provoked an enormous response from Chronicle readers. Could it be true? Or was this a "snitch-jacketing," a classic FBI tactic used to cast suspicion on a legitimate activist by spreading rumors and manufacturing evidence?

As a scholar, I insist on seeing evidence before concluding any "truth." But as I read Rosenfeld's work and cross-checked sources from my biography on Aoki, I realized Rosenfeld had not met the burden of proof. He made definitive conclusions based on inconclusive evidence.

If Aoki was an informant, when was he informing? How did he help the FBI disrupt political movements? What were his motivations?

I also questioned Rosenfeld's motives. Rosenfeld's piece, published the day before the release of his own book, gained him widespread media and public attention that surely will augment sales.
Rosenfeld offers four pieces of evidence against Aoki.

First, Rosenfeld cites only one FBI document, a Nov. 16, 1967, report. It states: "A supplementary T symbol (SF T-2) was designated for" - but the name was deleted. Following the now-blank space was the name Richard Matsui Aoki in parenthesis, and then the phrase "for the limited purpose of describing his connections with the organization and characterizing [Aoki]."

In the FBI pages released to me, only brief background material on Aoki is linked to T-2. Moreover, T symbols are used to refer to informants or technical sources of information (microphones, wiretaps). So was Aoki the informer or the one being observed?

Second, FBI agent Burney Threadgill Jr. said he recruited Aoki in the late 1950s, but we have no substantial evidence other than Rosenfeld's reports, and Threadgill has since died.

Third, FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen's statement, as quoted by Rosenfeld, is hardly compelling: "Someone like Aoki is perfect to be in a Black Panther Party, because I understand he is Japanese. Hey, nobody is going to guess - he's in the Black Panther Party; nobody is going to guess that he might be an informant." But more logically, Aoki's racial difference made him stand out and aroused suspicion. Are we asked to simply trust authority figures?

Fourth, Aoki's remarks, as seen in the video, are open to multiple interpretations, and Aoki denies the allegation. Anyone familiar with Aoki knows that he spoke with wit, humor, allusion and caution. Where's the conclusive evidence?

FBI reports notoriously get things wrong, unintentionally (misinformation, typos) and intentionally ("snitch-jacketing"). The FBI in its Cointelpro program created false letters and cartoons to foment conflict between the Black Panthers and another black nationalist organization, resulting in the 1969 murders of two Panthers at UCLA.

I have an FBI report, dated July 30, 1971, 105-189989-38, stating that Aoki had been "invited to become Minister of Defense of the Red Guard" and served as "the liaison link between the Red Guard and the Black Panther Party." But this seems wrong, based on archival documents and my interviews with Aoki and Red Guard leader Alex Hing.

Simply put, because of the FBI's political motives, FBI reports must be carefully cross-checked with non-FBI sources. But the entirety of Rosenfeld's evidence relies on FBI sources.

I was surprised that Aoki became the centerpiece of the chapter in Rosenfeld's book on the 1969 Third World strike. While Aoki was an important activist, he was largely unknown. Aoki and others agree that the Third World strike promoted collective leadership. They believed, as did African American civil rights activist Ella Baker, that the charismatic leadership model encouraged hero worship, reinforced individualism and narcissism, and diminished ordinary people's belief in their own power to effect change. Rosenfeld elevates Aoki to "one of the Bay Area's most prominent radical activists of the era," a point that amplifies the drama of his own discovery.

Rosenfeld is particularly critical of activists' use of violence without placing this violence in a larger context. He implies that Aoki's guns, given to the Black Panther Party, triggered the police's, FBI's and government's backlash. Yet he ignores the police brutality that inspired the Black Panther's police patrols, and the violence of racism and poverty that inspired the Panther's free breakfast programs. Instead, Aoki used the symbolic power of violence to stop the greater violence of the government's failing to actively counter poverty and institutionalized racism at home and in imposing war in Vietnam.

In my book on Aoki, I write that instead of being the trigger, Aoki acted as the "safety on the gun." He was careful to teach gun safety. Neither the Panthers nor Aoki expected to win a military battle with the government. Firing the gun wasn't their intended goal. Instead, Aoki used the symbolic power of violence to stop the greater violence of the state.

So why did Rosenfeld magnify Aoki when his book focuses more on Mario Savio, Clark Kerr and the Free Speech Movement? What responsibility does an author have to provide evidence beyond reasonable doubt before broadcasting disparaging accusations? Rosenfeld's article, video and book raise many questions, but fail to meet the burden of proof.

Diane C. Fujino is a professor and chair of Asian American studies at UC Santa Barbara and author of "Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life" (University of Minnesota Press, April 2012).

8/31: Rumba Con Salsa/Salsa Benefit Concert

The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign

www.ProLibertadWeb.com

ProLibertad@hotmail.com

718-601-4751

RUMBA CON SALSA EN LA MANZANA


6:30pm-7:30pm: Reception with Former Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Luis Rosa Perez
Videos and Slides (Campaign to free Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez
Rivera and of Tito Kayak's Kayaking Journey through the Carribbean for Oscar.
Presentation of Oscar's Book "Between Torture and Resistance"

Wine and Appetizers will be served!

7:45pm-8pm: Free Salsa Dance Lesson/Must purchase Concert Ticket to attend

Proceeds to cover expenses and donation towards translation of the Book "Between
Torture and Resistance" by Oscar Lopez Rivera

Statement Regarding Allegations that Richard Aoki Was An FBI Informant by Mike Cheng & Ben Wang

Aug. 21, 2012 aokifilm.com

A recent article (published at CIROnline.org) and book (entitled Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise To Power), both authored by Seth Rosenfeld, contain a serious allegation that Richard Aoki acted as an FBI informant throughout his involvement in several revolutionary movements for social justice.  If these allegations are proven to be true, we do not condone these actions in any shape or form.  However, as the discourse and investigation of these claims commence, we feel it is important to remind people that the burden of proof must fall on those that make the accusation.  “No investigation, no right to judge” is a common Movement saying that bears repeating in these circumstances.  Accusing anyone of being an informant is extremely inflammatory and any allegations must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated for evidence.   For those familiar with the history of COINTELPRO and tactics employed by the FBI falsely hanging snitchjackets on prominent contributors to the Movement to create internal dissent and conflict, the burden of proof must lie with the individual or group making the claim.  After reviewing Rosenfeld’s article, video, and book, there is no solid evidence presented that Richard was a FBI informant.Rosenfeld’s conclusion that Richard was an FBI informant is based on the following:
  • He claims Richard made “suggestive statements” during an interview he granted Rosenfeld in 2007.  However, the audio Rosenfeld has provided of the interview reveals that Richard clearly denied any allegation that he was an FBI informant.
  • An interview with former FBI agent Burney Threadgill in which he claims he recruited and trained Richard to be an informant.  Threadgill passed away in 2005 and does not appear to have offered any additional proof beyond his own word, which contradicts Richard’s.
  • An FBI document that connects Richard with a supplementary T symbol (SF T-2). This document does not explain what this designation meant except for the unclear statement, “the limited purpose of describing his connections with the organization and characterizing him.” Furthermore, all names under the Informants column on the page with the SF T-2 designation have been redacted.  In fact, all names on this page have been redacted except for Richard’s, which calls for further information and clarification as to the actual identity of SF T-2.  Since the identify of SF T-2 is unknown, it is possible that the SF T-2 informant was assigned to inform on Richard, explaining why Richard’s name is listed on this document and why SF T-2 was “designated (assigned) for…Aoki.”  The FBI files released by Rosenfeld do not reveal any documentation that Aoki actually provided information to the FBI.
  • The testimony of former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen that Richard fits the profile of an informant.  While Swearingen has been consistently outspoken and critical of the FBI’s counter surveillance tactics, he admits he does not have any actual connection to Richard.
Armed with no proof, it is unacceptable for Rosenfeld to discredit Richard’s integrity based on the unsubstantiated word of a deceased FBI agent and a document with redacted and vague information.  Many individuals and media outlets have immediately accepted the claims of an author who is aggressively promoting his book without properly examining the evidence for themselves.  Instead of automatically trusting questionable government sources and Rosenfeld’s sensationalist journalism, we must scrutinize what Rosenfeld states as fact.  We urge Richard’s former comrades, friends, associates, the 600 plus mourners who packed Wheeler Auditorium to attend his memorial service, and anyone concerned with government infiltration of social justice movements to get involved.  We must conduct our own research and publicly share our findings to determine the truth of the matter.  Characterized by many as a man of great principle, consistency, and integrity, Richard wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Wrong Reasons to Back Pussy Riot


By VADIM NIKITIN
Back in the ’70s, the United States and its allies cared little about what Soviet dissidents were actually saying, so long as it was aimed against the Kremlin. No wonder so many Americans who had never read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s books cheered when he dissed the Soviet Union later felt so shocked, offended and even betrayed when he criticized many of the same shortcomings in his adoptive homeland. Wasn’t this guy supposed to be on our side? 

Using dissidents to score political points against the Russian regime is as dangerous as adopting a pet tiger: No matter how domesticated they may seem, in the end they are free spirits, liable to maul the hand that feeds them. 

How many fans of Pussy Riot’s zany “punk prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s erudite and moving closing statement were equally thrilled by her participation, naked and heavily pregnant, in a public orgy at a Moscow museum in 2008? That performance, by the radical art group Voina (Russian for “war”), was meant to illustrate how Russians were abused by their government. Voina had previously set fire to a police car and drew obscene images on a St. Petersburg drawbridge. 

Stunts like that would get you arrested just about anywhere, not just in authoritarian Russia. But Pussy Riot and its comrades at Voina come as a full package: You can’t have the fun, pro-democracy, anti-Putin feminism without the incendiary anarchism, extreme sexual provocations, deliberate obscenity and hard-left politics. 

Unless you are comfortable with all that (and I strongly suspect 99 percent of Pussy Riot’s fans in the mainstream media are not), then standing behind Pussy Riot only now, when it is obviously blameless and the government clearly guilty, is pure opportunism. And just like in the bad old days, such knee-jerk yet selective support for Russian dissidents — without fully engaging with their ideas — is not only hypocritical but also does a great disservice to their cause. 

A former Soviet dissident and current member of the anti-Putin opposition, Eduard Limonov, knows such cynicism too well. Thrown out of the Soviet Union and welcomed in New York as a Cold War trophy, Limonov soon learned that it wasn’t the dissent part that the United States loved about Soviet dissidents, but their anti-communism. A bristly and provocative anti-Soviet leftist, he got to work doing what he did best — taking on the establishment — and quickly found himself in hot water again, this time with the Americans. Limonov concluded that “the F.B.I. is just as zealous in putting down American radicals as the K.G.B. is with its own radicals and dissidents.” 

At the core of much of the media fever over Pussy Riot lies a fundamental misunderstanding of what these Russian dissidents are about. Some outlets have portrayed the case as a quest for freedom of expression and other ground rules of liberal democracy. Yet the very phrase “freedom of expression,” with its connotations of genteel protest as a civic way to blow off some steam while life goes on, is alien to Russian radical thought. The members of Pussy Riot are not liberals looking for self-expression. They are self-confessed descendants of the surrealists and the Russian futurists, determined to radically, even violently, change society. 

Anyone who has bothered to see them beyond their relevance as anti-Kremlin proxies will know that these young people are as contemptuous of capitalism as they are of Putinism. They are targeting not just Russian authoritarianism, but, in Tolokonnikova’s words, the entire “corporate state system.” And that applies to the West as much as to Russia itself. It includes many of the fawning foreign media conglomerates covering the trial, like Murdoch’s News Corp., and even such darlings of the anti-Putin “liberal opposition” establishment as the businessman and anti-corruption campaigner Aleksei Navalny. 

Pussy Riot’s fans in the West need to understand that their heroes’ dissent will not stop at Putin; neither will it stop if and when Russia becomes a “normal” liberal democracy. Because what Pussy Riot wants is something that is equally terrifying, provocative and threatening to the established order in both Russia and the West (and has been from time immemorial): freedom from patriarchy, capitalism, religion, conventional morality, inequality and the entire corporate state system. We should only support these brave women if we, too, are brave enough to go all the way. 

Vadim Nikitin is a journalist and Russia analyst.

Fred Ho Refutes Claim that Richard Aoki was an FBI Informant

August 21, 2012

I knew Richard Aoki from the period of the late 1990s to the end of his
life in 2009. Prior to the publication of Diane Fujino's book, /SAMURAI
AMONG PANTHERS/ (University of Minnesota Press), I probably was the main
person who had published the most about Aoki (c.f., /Legacy to
Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific
America/, AK Press).

In fact, Richard Aoki and I spoke on the telephone a day or two

before he killed himself. During the Spring of 2009 we were in regular
contact via telephone (as he was in the Bay Area and I in New York City)
as I had undergone another surgery in the cancer war I have been
fighting since 2006, and he was facing major illness and deterioration,
hospitalized during this time. Richard regularly contacted me as he was
very concerned about my dying, and I was concerned for him as well.

We had a very special relationship that allows me to easily, comfortably
and assertively rebut the claims made by the two proponents of the
accusation that Richard Aoki was an FBI informant.

What was our special relationship? Richard was exasperated at how
creative, revolutionary ideology had seriously waned, both from Panther
veterans and from the younger generation stuck in the Non-Profit
Industrial Complex mode of organization and their "activistism" (or what
I humorously proffer as "activistitis", the political tendency to be
tremendously busy with activism but failing to have a revolutionary
vision guide and dominate that activism). As Fujino remarks, Aoki viewed
me as someone with creative revolutionary ideology and he sought me out
and we shared many discussions and a special closeness. (Note: Aoki did
not know the brilliant political prisoner, Russell Maroon Shoatz,
someone who now at age 68, could go toe-to-toe ideologically with
Richard Aoki!)

Why would an FBI agent do this, almost 50 years past the hoorah days of
the Sixties? It is implied by the calumnious assertions by journalist
Seth Rosenfeld (whose book is opportunistically coming out today:
/Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicalism, and Reagan's Rise to
Power/, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) that Aoki was probably still an agent
even to the time of his death, though, like the rest of the "evidence"
or assertions by Rosenfeld, never substantiated or clearly documented.

That is because Aoki NEVER was an agent, and unlike many of the
prominent Panthers (notably Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton), remained a
revolutionary for life and never degenerated into self-obsession and
egomania. To the end of his life, Aoki could go toe-to-toe with any
revolutionary intellectual, theorist or organizer on the complexities
and challenges of revolutionary theory, including the U.S. "national
question," socialism, etc.

Here is my rebuttal to Seth Rosenfeld and to former FBI agent Wes
Swearingen, the two main proponents of the Aoki-was-an-FBI-agent claim.

1. The written FBI documents are very vague and much is redacted. The
T-2 identification has Richard Aoki's middle name incorrectly listed.
All other identities of other informants are redacted. Why? Why was only
Aoki "revealed"? This is the only real factual evidence that Rosenfeld
has to offer. The rest is supposition and surmise.

2. Scott Kurashige asserts in his contextualization and weak challenge
to Rosenfeld that perhaps Aoki during the 1950s had agreed to be an FBI
informant during a period in Aoki's life when he wasn't interested in
politics or "communism." But that later, in the '60s, when Aoki, as so
many of that generation got radicalized, that he couldn't admit to what
he had done earlier as it would have cast huge aspersion and suspicion
around him among the Panthers who were quick to be intolerant and
unwilling to accept such past mistakes. However, Kurashige falls short
here. Even if this were the case, that Richard had naively agreed to be
an informant in his youth, prior to being radicalized, and couldn't
admit to it later, what is impossible to reconcile is that the entire 50
year arc of Richard's life and work has helped the Movement far more
than hindered or harmed it.

3. If Richard was a FBI agent, how did he help the FBI? By training the
Panthers in Marxist ideology, socialism? By leading drill classes at 7am
daily and instilling iron-discipline in their ranks? By being one of the
leaders to bring about Ethnic (Third World) Studies in the U.S.? Other
questions that aren't answered by Rosenfeld: How much was Aoki paid if
he was an agent? What did Aoki get out of it? How long was he an agent
for? There is no evidence that Aoki sabotaged, foment divisions, incited
violence, etc. The over-emphasis upon Aoki providing the Panthers their
first firearms is sensationalist fodder. What is conveniently ignored is
what he contributed most to the Panthers and to the legacy of the U.S.
revolutionary movement: promoting revolutionary study, ideology and
disciplined organization. That's why he was Field Marshall because the
cat could organize and tolerated no indiscipline and lack of seriousness.

4. How does a FBI agent acquire the super-Jason Bourne-equivalent
ideological skills to influence so many radicals both of the Sixties and
continuously to his death, including myself? There is no Cliff Notes or
Crash Course FBI Training Academy 101 on Revolutionary Ideology on the
nuances of debates on "peaceful transition to socialism as revisionism",
or "liberal multi-culturalism as the neo-colonialism within U.S. Third
World communities," etc. You get the picture. Richard Aoki
intellectually had the brilliance that surpassed any professor of
radicalism at any university or college. Could a FBI agent really be
this? We see from the FBI agent who helped in the assassination of Mark
Clark and Fred Hampton, that he was paid around $200, that he was
primarily head of security for the slain Panther leader Fred Hampton,
and that he committed suicide ostensibly for the guilt that he had over
his role in the murder of Hampton and Clark. There is no evidence of
this for Aoki, in fact, Aoki remained a committed revolutionary to the end.

5. The supposed admission that Rosenfeld has on tape, shown on the link:
http://californiawatch.org/public-safety/man-who-armed-black-panthers-was-fbi-informant-records-show-17634

is typical Aoki humor in answering "Oh." The subtext, as Aoki knew he
was talking to a reporter, is really: "Oh, you motherfucker, so that's
what he said, well, stupid, then it must be true!" Rosenfeld notes that
Aoki laughs (which is laughing AT Rosenfeld!). Anyone who really knew
Richard Aoki knows that he used humor often to turn someone's stupid
questions back at them, saying to the effect: well if you are stupid to
think that, then it must be true for you!

6. The corroboration offered by former FBI agent, now turned squealer,
Wes Swearingen, is not evidence. Swearingen only thinks that it is
likely Aoki was an informer for the FBI because he was Japanese! How
stupid! Would fierce black nationalists accept someone more easily
because he was Japanese? If that were so, there would have been more
Asians in the Panthers! Yes, Richard personally knew many of the
founding Panther members, including Seale and Newton, precisely because
these hardcore guys truly trusted Richard because Richard could do the
do! Again, the question must be asked, what benefits did the FBI get
from having Aoki as an informant to lend credibility to this assertion?
At best, Swearingen can only offer speculation and surmise, as he can't
testify that he actually KNEW Aoki to be an agent or witnessed FBI
encounters with Aoki.

7. The one FBI agent who might have actually encountered Aoki, an agent
named Threadgill, is now (conveniently) deceased, who claimed in
mid-1965 he was Aoki's handler. We have no way of verifying this except
relying upon Rosenfeld's claims. When Rosenfeld asked Aoki point blank
if he knew this guy, Threadgill, Aoki flatly denies knowing such a
person and jokes about it (again, in the Aoki style: "Oh, if that's what
he claims, and you think it so, then it must be so, stupid!")

8. Lastly, what is to be gained by this accusation of Aoki as FBI
informant, a day before Rosenfeld's book hits the bookstores? To sell
books via this hype and sensationalism. Aoki did more to build the
student movement in the Bay Area than many others. Let's ask the
question, how much was Rosenfeld paid for his book deal? We should ask
that same question about the late Manning Marable, whose
supposition-filled and sloppy "scholarly" account of Malcolm X is
equally reprehensible. Besides the obvious gain to Rosenfeld directly of
hoping to increase book sales and his wallet, we must ask the larger
political question, how does this accusation against the deceased Aoki
affect the larger politics of today?

Well, here's how: it fuels doubt on so many levels to building radical
politics, sowing dissension between Black nationalists and Asian
American radicals, distrust of our revolutionary leaders of past and
present, fear for the police-state and its power to extend itself into
the core leadership of revolutionary movements, and as witnessed by
Scott Kurashige's capitulation to the reformist politics of
non-violence, to elevating Martin Luther King, Jr. above the Black
Liberationists (Kurashige calls for a re-look and re-examination of MLK,
implying this is safer and more amenable than the "violence" advocated
by Aoki and the Panthers). And this is simply the tip of an iceberg
building to stave off the growth of radicalism generated by the Occupy,
eco-socialist and anti-globalization movements both in the U.S. and
across the planet.

Here is the initial reaction by most people not cowered or shocked by
Rosenfeld's accusations, who either personally knew Richard Aoki (as I
did) or who are accustomed to or familiar with such "dirty tricks" as
employed by Rosenfeld: If Aoki was an agent, so what? He surely was a
piss-poor one because what he contributed to the Movement is enormously
greater than anything he could have detracted or derailed. If it is
implied that Aoki promoted firearms, and violence, to the Panthers,
well, here's some news: the Panthers were well on that direction as part
of the trajectory set by Malcolm X, Robert F. Williams, the Deacons of
Defense (who the Panthers modeled themselves upon), Harriet Tubman,
Geronimo, Tucemseh, Crazy Horse, and so many others.

And if you are gullible to believe these "dirty tricks" (which isn't
surprising given how media hype today is so powerful and influential),
and rely upon the internet instead of actual experience in struggle and
revolutionary organizing, then you need to get real, get serious, and
deal with counter-hegemonic consciousness-raising for yourself. But most
of us who never were shocked by this accusation towards Richard simply
took the attitude, PHUCK THEM (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux; Swearingen,
Rosenfeld, and anyone who swallows this crap!)!

George Jackson video to commemorate 41 years since his murder - August 21st


George Jackson - 41 year commemoration from Freedom Archives on Vimeo.

August 21st marks the 41th anniversary of the execution of George Lester
Jackson. The Chicago- born Jackson would have celebrated his 71th
birthday on September 23rd.

Jackson was a prisoner who became an author, a member of the Black
Panther Party, and co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family prison
organization. He achieved global fame as one of the Soledad Brothers
before being executed by prison guards in San Quentin Prison.

Based on an edited portion of Prisons on Fire by the Freedom Archives
(2001) with video editing by Oriana Bolden.

You can watch it here:
http://vimeo.com/27870164
George Jackson

Activist Richard Aoki named as informant

Seth Rosenfeld, Center for Investigative Reporting 
Monday, August 20, 2012 Sfgate.com
The man who gave the Black Panther Party some of its first firearms and weapons training - which preceded fatal shootouts with Oakland police in the turbulent 1960s - was an undercover FBI informer, according to a former bureau agent and an FBI report.

One of the Bay Area's most prominent radical activists of the era, Richard Masato Aoki was known as a fierce militant who touted his street-fighting abilities. He was a member of several radical groups before joining and arming the Panthers, whose members received international notoriety for brandishing weapons during patrols of the Oakland police and a protest at the state Capitol.
Aoki went on to work for 25 years as a teacher, counselor and administrator at the Peralta Community College District, and after his suicide in 2009, he was revered as a fearless radical.
But unbeknownst to his fellow activists, Aoki had served as an FBI intelligence informant, covertly filing reports on a wide range of Bay Area political groups, according to the bureau agent who recruited him.

That agent, Burney Threadgill Jr., recalled that he approached Aoki in the late 1950s, about the time Aoki was graduating from Berkeley High School. He asked Aoki if he would join left-wing groups and report to the FBI.

"He was my informant. I developed him," Threadgill said in an interview. "He was one of the best sources we had."

The former agent said he asked Aoki how he felt about the Soviet Union, and the young man replied that he had no interest in communism.

"I said, 'Well, why don't you just go to some of the meetings and tell me who's there and what they talked about?' Very pleasant little guy. He always wore dark glasses," Threadgill recalled.

Book details role

Aoki's work for the FBI, which has never been reported, was uncovered and verified during research for the book by this reporter, "Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power." The book, based on research spanning three decades, will be published Tuesday by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

In 2007, two years before he committed suicide, Aoki was asked in a tape-recorded interview for the book if he had been an FBI informant. Aoki's first response was a long silence. He then replied, " 'Oh,' is all I can say."

Later during the same interview, Aoki contended the information wasn't true.

Asked if this reporter was mistaken that Aoki had been an informant, Aoki said, "I think you are," but added: "People change. It is complex. Layer upon layer."

FBI code number

The FBI later released records about Aoki in response to a federal Freedom of Information Act request made by this reporter. A Nov. 16, 1967, intelligence report on the Black Panthers lists Aoki as an "informant" with the code number "T-2."

An FBI spokesman declined to comment on Aoki, citing litigation seeking additional records about him under the Freedom of Information Act.

Since Aoki shot himself at his Berkeley home after a long illness, his legend has grown. In a 2009 feature-length documentary film, "Aoki," and a 2012 biography, "Samurai Among Panthers," he is portrayed as a militant radical leader. Neither mentions that he had worked with the FBI.
Harvey Dong, who was a fellow activist and close friend, said last week that he had never heard that Aoki was an informant.

"It's definitely something that is shocking to hear," said Dong, who was the executor of Aoki's estate. "I mean, that's a big surprise to me."

Finding the informant

Threadgill recalled that he first approached Aoki after a bureau wiretap on the home phone of Saul and Billie Wachter, local members of the Communist Party, picked up Aoki talking to Berkeley High classmate Doug Wachter.

At first, Aoki gathered information about the Communist Party, Threadgill said. But Aoki soon focused on the Socialist Workers Party and its youth affiliate, the Young Socialist Alliance, which also were targets of an intensive FBI domestic security investigation.

By spring 1962, Aoki had been elected to the Berkeley Young Socialist Alliance's executive council, FBI records show. That December, he became a member of the Oakland-Berkeley branch of the Socialist Workers Party, where he served as the representative to Bay Area civil rights groups. He also was on the steering committee of the Committee to Uphold the Right to Travel, which worked to give students the right to travel to Cuba. In 1965, Aoki joined the Vietnam Day Committee, an influential antiwar group based in Berkeley, and worked on its international committee as liaison to foreign antiwar activists.

All along, Aoki met regularly with his FBI handler. Aoki also filed reports by phone, Threadgill said.
"I'd call him and say, 'When do you want to get together?' " Threadgill recalled. "I'd say, 'I'll meet you on the street corner at so-and-so and so on.' I would park a couple of blocks away and get out and go and sit down and talk to him."

'He had guns'

Threadgill worked with Aoki through mid-1965, when he moved to another FBI office and turned Aoki over to a fellow agent.

Aoki gave the Panthers some of their first guns. As Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale recalled in his memoir, "Seize the Time," the group approached Aoki, "a Third World brother we knew, a Japanese radical cat. He had guns ... .357 Magnums, 22's, 9mm's, what have you."
In early 1967, Aoki joined the Black Panther Party and gave them more guns, Seale wrote. Aoki also gave Panther recruits weapons training, he said in the 2007 interview.

Although carrying weapons was legal at the time, there is little doubt their presence contributed to fatal confrontations between the Panthers and the police.

Deadly shootouts

On Oct. 28, 1967, Black Panthers co-founder Huey Newton was in a shootout that wounded Oakland Officer Herbert Heanes and killed Officer John Frey. On April 6, 1968, Eldridge Cleaver and five other Panthers were involved in a firefight with Oakland police. Cleaver and two officers were wounded, and Panther Bobby Hutton was killed.

M. Wesley Swearingen, a retired FBI agent who has criticized unlawful bureau surveillance activities under Director J. Edgar Hoover, reviewed some of the FBI's records. He concluded in a sworn declaration that Aoki had been an informant.

"I believe that Aoki was an informant," said Swearingen, who served in the FBI from 1951 to 1977 and worked on a squad that investigated the Panthers.

"Someone like Aoki is perfect to be in a Black Panther Party, because I understand he is Japanese," he added. "Hey, nobody is going to guess - he's in the Black Panther Party; nobody is going to guess that he might be an informant."