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Freedom for Oscar López!

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Freedom for Oscar López! AUSTRALIA $1.50 · CANADA $1.50 · FRANCE 1.00 EURO · NEW ZEALAND $1.50 · UK £.50 · U.S. $1.00 INSIDE SWP convention sets course to build revolutionary party — PAGE 8-9 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE Vol. 81/no. 5 FebruarY 6, 2017 Trump moves Syrian toilers Freedom for Oscar López! into White face disaster Release is set for May 17 House, faces as area rulers liberal outcry seek leverage BY MAGGIE trowE BY NAomI CRAINE Republican billionaire President Two days of talks seeking a politi- Donald Trump provoked an uproar cal settlement that would defend the among liberals Jan. 20 when he de- sponsoring capitalist regimes’ inter- scribed the bleak conditions mil- ests ended Jan. 24 without any agree- lions of workers face in his inaugural ment between the Syrian regime of speech. On the steps of the U.S. Capi- Bashar al-Assad and opponents of tol he declared, “This American car- his dictatorial rule. The sponsoring nage stops right here and stops right governments of Russia, Turkey and now.” Iran announced they would set up a These critics called Trump’s ad- joint system for monitoring the shaky dress “dark” and “divisive,” expos- cease-fire that has been in effect since ing the fact that they live in a differ- Dec. 30, with details to be worked out ent world from working people and later. don’t experience the crisis workers The talks took place in Astana, Ka- and farmers face under today’s grind- zakhstan, with United Nations envoy ing depression conditions. They can’t Staffan de Mistura serving as media- understand that Trump won the presi- tor. The Donald Trump administra- tion decided not to send a delegation Above, Militant/Ron Richards; Inset, Reuters/Alvin Baez dency by acknowledging the eco- Above, May 29, 2016, march in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Inset, Oscar López’s daughter Clarisa nomic and social devastation workers from Washington; the U.S. ambas- at Jan. 17 press conference in San Juan, announcing that the fighter for independence from face and promising to deal with it, sador to Kazakhstan attended as an U.S. colonial rule would be released by May 17 after nearly 36 years in federal prison. something neither he nor any capital- observer. ist politician can accomplish. This new cooperation between SWP: Victory for Puerto López: Step up fight to end “The US ruling families and their Moscow and Tehran (both have Rico, all working people colonial rule in Puerto Rico rivals in Europe and the Pacific en- backed Assad) and Ankara (which has The following message to Puerto BY SEth GALInsKY Continued on page 6 Continued on page 11 Rican independence fighter Oscar After nearly 36 years in jail in the López Rivera was sent Jan. 21 by Os- United States — including more than borne Hart, Socialist Workers Party 12 in solitary confinement — Puerto Fidel Castro, Cuba’s revolution candidate for mayor of New York. Rican independence fighter Oscar López Rivera will be released with- Dear Oscar, out conditions by May 17. President celebrated at Washington forum The Jan. 17 commutation of your Barack Obama announced the com- sentence is a victory for the people of mutation of his sentence Jan. 17. Puerto Rico and all those around the Supporters of López’s fight for free- world who fought for your freedom. dom celebrated across Puerto Rico; It’s a testament to your intransigent in New York; Chicago; Kissimmee, Continued on page 11 Continued on page 6 ‘Women’s march’ no advance in fight for rights of women BY MAGGIE trowE demands. It wasn’t aimed at spur- WASHINGTON — The day after ring state-by-state battles to defend the Trump inauguration, several hun- a woman’s right to choose abortion dred thousand people took part in a against continuing attacks. It drew bourgeois “Women’s March on Wash- Continued on page 3 ington” happening organized by po- litical forces bitterly disappointed that Hillary Clinton had not been elected. The Bernie Sanders “Our Revolution” Inside group, the Communist Party and nu- Editorial: Step up the fight Le Canal Nabo News merous others promoted the action as to free Leonard Peltier! 11 Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas, with microphone, and Gnaka Lagoke, far right, part of resuscitating the Democratic of the Revival of Panafricanism Forum, at Jan. 7 meeting in Washington, D.C., to celebrate political life and leadership of Fidel Castro and internationalism of Cuban Revolution. Party with a more progressive veneer UK: Hundreds protest against and fighting “Trumpism.” Similar ral- cop killing of Yassar Yaqub 2 BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN proletarian internationalism. lies took place in many U.S. cities and WASHINGTON — Some 200 peo- “Thank you for talking about Fi- around the world. Thousands march in Gaza ple gathered here Jan. 7 for a meeting del’s life with happiness, and without The action was called the day after against cuts in electricity 4 to pay tribute to the historic leader of a sentiment of loss,” said José Ramón the November election by people who the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Cabañas, Cuban ambassador to the had expected they would be celebrat- –On the picket line, p. 5– Ruz, who died Nov. 25. Titled “Cuba, United States. “Many U.S. workers ing the ascendancy of the first woman Momentive strikers rally Africa and the World: A Tribute to president. respect Fidel.” against Wall Street owner Fidel Castro,” speakers discussed Fidel’s enemies have been wonder- Far from signaling the rise of a new Castro’s decisive political leadership ing about the ‘post-Castro Cuba’ for women’s movement, the rally weak- West Coast crab fisherman at all the crucial turning points in the years, Cabañas said. Describing how ened the fight for women’s rights. It end strike against price cut Cuban Revolution and his unbroken Continued on page 7 wasn’t organized around any concrete UK: Hundreds protest against Mother: ‘Facts show NY police killed Mohamed Bah’ cop killing of Yassar Yaqub BY HUGO WILS “We are protesting because we’re AND TONY HUNT determined to get justice, at least we HUDDERSFIELD, England — can try to stop this from happening Some 80 people attended a protest vigil again,” Mohammed Rizwan, a protest on the ramp off the M62 motorway Jan. organizer, told Pete Clifford, Commu- 9, where Mohammed Yassar Yaqub, 28, nist League candidate for Greater Man- was shot dead by police a week earlier. chester mayor, at the Jan. 9 action. “We A protest brought traffic to a standstill don’t know exactly what happened, but Jan. 3 in nearby Bradford. Hundreds at- they didn’t have to kill him.” tended Yaqub’s funeral here. “The police should be prosecuted for Dozens of young people mainly from this crime,” Clifford said, “so they’ll Pakistani families joined the Jan. 9 ac- think twice next time before carrying tion, wearing sweatshirts saying, “No out a hard stop and killing somebody.” justice, no humanity, no peace” and An official inquest into the death “No chance to surrender, no warning opened in Bradford, establishing that shots, unlawful killing.” Yaqub died from gunshot wounds to Justice Committee At 6 p.m. Jan. 2, Yaqub was traveling his chest. The police say a firearm was NEW YORK — “I was happy to get parents and families together” involved in a car that was boxed in suddenly by found in the car. in actions against cop brutality and killings, Hawa Bah told the Militant Jan. unmarked West Yorkshire Police cars The big-business newspapers have 18. The “Faith Action for Mohamed Bah,” above, at the Department of Justice in a “hard stop.” The cops didn’t wear been using this claim, and the fact he offices here Jan. 12 was organized by the Justice Committee to demand U.S. body cameras, so there is no recording was charged in 2010 with attempted Attorney Preet Bharara prosecute the cops who killed her son, Mohamed Bah. of what transpired. Photographs showed murder, for which he was acquitted, to On Sept. 25, 2012, Hawa Bah dialed 911 to ask for an ambulance for her three bullet holes in the windscreen of launch a smear campaign, alleging he son, a student and taxi driver who was suffering from a mental breakdown. Yaqub’s car. was a “drugs kingpin.” Instead of medical personnel, five heavily armed cops arrived. “I told them, Mohammed Yaqub, Yassar’s father, ‘My son didn’t do anything wrong. He’s sick and needs to go to the hospital,’” answered the attacks on his son. “He she said. They pushed past her, went up to Bah’s apartment and shot him dead. Malcolm X, Black The original account by police spokespeople claimed Mohamed Bah had hasn’t got a bad past, because he’s never plunged a 13-inch knife into two officers, slicing their protective vests and Liberation, & the Road been convicted of anything,” he told a to Workers Power prompting detective Edwin Mateo to yell, “He’s stabbing me, shoot him.” BBC reporter, “I want answers, full an- In November 2013 a grand jury ruled that the “use of deadly physical force by Jack Barnes swers, nothing but the truth. How can was not unlawful” in Bah’s killing. But documents showing that Mateo later you kill someone like this, at a time like changed his story, saying that he was actually hit by a police Taser, were kept Why revolution- this, without giving him a chance to get ary conquest of from Bah and her attorneys. Officials say the knife and other evidence in the out or anything?” case were never tested for fingerprints and are now “contaminated” or “lost.” power by the Clifford and other Communist working class will In a civil lawsuit filed by Hawa Bah against the city, her attorney Randolph League members campaigned in McLaughlin deposed Mateo, who admitted that Bah had not stabbed him.
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