THE INSURGENT Newsletter of the Committee to Fight Repression Vol. 3 No.2 Fall 1987 Assata Shakur is Alive and Well in Cuba I In This Issue: Interview with Puerto Rican Independence 16 Iran/Contragate Fighting AIDS in Prison Update on Lexington Control Unit and more. 75¢ THE INSURGENT 2 WRITE TO THE PRISONERS OF WAR AND POLITICAL PRISONERS: PUERTO RICAN NEW AFRIKAN/BLACK Mutulu Shakur #83205-012 PRISONERS OF WAR PRISONERS OF WAR AND MCC-9 South Edwin Cortes #92153-024 POLITICAL PRISONERS 150 Park Row Alberto Rodriguez #92150-024 Kalima Aswad sin Robert Ouren #B24120 NY, NY 10007 Ricardo Jimenez #88967-024 Duell Correctional Facility . Kazi Toure (sin Chris King) P.O. Box 1000 P.O. Box 600 Cambridge City Jail Lewisburg, PA 17837 Tracy, CA 95376 40 Thorndike St. Elizam Escobar #88969-024 Mohaman Geuka Koti #80-A-808 Cambridge, MA 02141 FCI Albert Nuh Washington #n-A-1528 Richard Mafundi Lake #79972 Box 1500 Auburn Cor. Facility 100 Warrior Lane EI Reno, OK 135 State Street Bessemer, AL 35023 Oscar Lopez #88765-024 Auburn, NY 13024-9000 Comrade Rikke Green #84244 MCC Jah sin Teddy Heath #75-A-0139 Oklahoma State Penitentiary 71 W: Van Buren Abdul Majid #82-A-0483 P.O. Box 97 Chicago, IL 60605 Attica Cor. Facility McAlester, OK 74501 Adolfo Matos #88968-024 ·P.O. Box 149 Gary Tyler #84156 P.O. Box 1000 Attica, NY 14011-0149 Louisiana State Pen. Lompoc, CA 93438 Herman Bell #79-C-262 Angola, LA 70712 Basheer Hameed (sin James York) William Guillermo Morales MOVE Prisoners Apto. 20-853 #82-A-6313 Col. San Angel Shawangunk William Phillips Africa #4986 Mexico 20-D.F. Box 700 Edward Goodman Africa #4974 Wallkill, NY 12585 P.O. Box 200 Dylcia Pagan #88971-024 Camp Hill, PA 17011 Lucy Rodriguez #88973-024 Cecilio Chui Ferguson Haydee Torres #88462-024 FCI, P.O. Box 1000 Debbie Sims Africa #6307 Carmen Valentin #88974-024 Lewisburg, PA 1~37 Consusuella Dotson Africa FCI Pleasanton Mark Cook #20025-148K Ramona Johnson Africa 5701 8th St. 3901 Klein Boulevard Alberta Wicker Africa Camp Parks Lompoc, CA 93438 . Sue Savino Africa Dublin, CA 94568 Janine Phillips Africa Haki Malik Abdullah Merle Austin Africa Alicia Rodriguez #N07157 sin Michael Green #C-56123 Janet Holloway Africa PO Box C Ruchell Cinque Magee #A92051 P.O. Box 180 Dwight, IL 60420 Hugo Pinell #A88401 Muncy, PA 1n56 Luis Rosa #N02743 Folsom Prison Represa, CA 95671 Charles Sims Africa #M4972 Box 711- Delbert Orr Africa #M4985 Menard, IL 60434 Robert Seth Hayes #74-A-2280 Carlos Perez Africa Alejandrina Torres #92052-024 Jalil Muntaqin #n-A-4283 Drawer K HSU Lexington Greenhaven Prison Dallas, PA 18612 P.O. Box 2000 Drawer 8 . Stormville, NY 12582 Mumia Abu Jamal Lexington, KY 40512 Michael Africa Carlos Alberto Torres #88976-024 Kojo Sababu-Bomani (sin Grailing Brown) Drawer R FCI MCC Huntington, PA 16652 902 Renfroe 71 W. Van Buren Talladega, AL 35160 Chicago, IL 60605 NATIVE AMERICAN Richard Thompson-EI PRISONERS OF WAR AND PUERTO RICAN P.O. Box 1000 ·POLITICAL PRISONERS POLITICAL PRISONERS Marion, IL 62959 · Rita Silk Nauni Julio Veras y Delgadillo #00799-069-E3 Geronimo Pratt #8-40319 Box 11492 FCI Charles Scott #C-19320 Mable Basset Cor. Inst. Petersburg, VA 23803 San Quentin Prison Oklahoma City, OK 73136 Filiberto Ojeda Rios #03167-069 Tamal, CA 94976 Leonard Peltier #89637-132 Juan Segarra Palmer Richard Dhoruba Moore #"72-A-0639 P.O. Box 1000 • Federal Detention Center Sullivan Corr. Fac. Leavenworth, KS 66048 P.O. Box 178 P.O: Box A-G Standing Deer sin Robert Wilson Hartford, cr 06101-0178 Fallsburg, NY 12733 McAlister State Prison Sekou Odinga .#05228-054 P.O. Box 97 Sundiata Acoli (sin Clark Squire) McAlester, OK 74502 #39794-066 I USP Leavenworth list continues on back page P.O. Box 1000 Leavenworth, KS 66048 - THE INSURGENT 3 Editorial: Ira n/ Contragate: The Empire Has No Clothes! "One of the e s sent ial tasks of t he revolu­ What we have really s ~ en r evealed is t he o p­ t i onary left , i r regard l e ss o f the shadings erations of the U. S . imperi a lis t s t a te . The that repression assumes i n their countries , ruling class has under its con t ro~appar­ i s the demyst i fi c ation of the bourgeois atus to maintain i t s domination and po liti ­ state, especiall y its false 'democracy . '" cal power -- a n organizati on of viol e nce t o - La Liga S9ci a lista (LSP) maintain the status quo. That o rganiza tion Puerto Ri co is the state : the army , t he po l i ce, para mil­ itary organizations . I ran/ contragate showed The Iran/contragate h e aring s g a ve us only a us once again that this apparat us contains glimpse of the work ings of the U.S. imperial­ . both governmental a nd n on-g over nmenta l i st s 'tate (as d i stinguished from the U. S. structures . The U. &. military a nd private gove rnment.) In t he c ongressional hearings, paramilitray organizations, U. S . government Congress and the mass med i a pulled· the cur­ f unding and private donat ions -- al l are un ­ tains closed on t he t r uth. It remains the der the control of the U.S. ruling clas s. task of a l l of us to open those curtains, Military codes were given to Oliver No r t h to so that we know what we' re u p against in or­ secure private contra support ne t works. Th is de r to devise strategi es t o resist. is not the "priv atization" o f leg itimate U.S. military functions but rather t h e inter ­ Wh atever truth has come out is thanks to the change between officia l and priv ate ins t itu­ work of progressive rel ig i o us grou ps, leftist tions, all serving the same goals o f t he pol i tical ana l ysts and huma n rights advo­ same ruling class . c ates . They have reve a l e d a conspiracy to carry out the "Reagan Doc tr i ne" -- a global Of course the U.S. ruling cla ss wo u ld rather anti - communi st counter revolution labeled achieve its goals through legitimate chan­ "counterterrorism" -- outside o f congressional nels. They would have preferred there t e revi ew and hidden from t h e American public. have been more popular support in t his coun- Under the auspices .of t he National Security Council, Co l. Oliver North too k $ 1 . 4 million ON THE COVER: made in a secret arms dea l with Iran and : fun­ Assata Shakur is· alive and well and liv­ neled it to the contras . The investigation ing in Cuba! Just two weeks before the of this deal revea l ed t he shadowy .world of eighth anniversary of Assata's libera­ i mperiali sm 's c o v e ~t actions taken ~nder the tion from priso n, · she ha s r evealed t h a t war cry of 'defending n a tional security inter­ the Cuban government has g r anted her pol­ e s ts. ' itical asylum. Assata, a Black revolu­ tionary, former member of the Black Pan­ But we're in danger of miss i ng the real les­ ther Party, soldier of the Black Libera­ sons of the Iran/cont ragate affair if we don't t ion Army , was freed from Cl i n t on State go somewhat further than even most of the Prison in New Jersey by a unit of the left's analysis. Co ng r e ss wa n t ed the public Black Liberation Army on November 2 , to concl ude that there were rog ue elements in 1979. Since then she has been hunted the White House -- a "sha dow g ov ernment . " natiowide by the FBI and the N.J. State Congr ess never quarre l ed wi t h the goals of Police. Assata Shakur had been serving the cover t maneuvers -- t h at' s why they al­ a life-plus-3D year sentence for the lowed the hearings to bec ome a platform for 1973 death of a N.J. State Trooper , counterterrorist i deol ogy . What did disturb killed during a highway assault on Assata them was how unprofess i onally these opera­ and two others. In the shoot-out, BLA tions were carried out . The resolutions member Zayd Malik Shakur was killed and that Congress proposes will be ways to pro­ Sundiata A.coli, also of the BLA , was ar­ fess i onalize the very s a me s trategy. rested. The left/liberal criti que expose s more of On Sunday, October 11, a front page story the facts, but it concentr ates on the "priv ­ in the New York ~ity newspape~ Newsday re ~ atization " of U.S. foreign polic y -- that vealed that Assata has been living in policy is carried out outs i de of the struc­ Cuba since 1984. They published a lengthy tures and control of "democr a tic" govern­ interview with Assata in which she reaf­ ment . They do argue that the Reag~n Doc­ firmed her commitment to the Black Lib ~r­ trine viol ates both internationa l and U. S . at ion S·truggle in the U.S.