OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF THE ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON  MUMIA, SHAKA AND THE RACIST REPRESSION IN THE U.S.  AIRED ON CUBA  TV ON JUNE 19TH, 2000

Conferencia Sobre Prisoners en EE.UU.: Partidarios de Mumia Hablan por TV Cubana

Fri, 30 Jun 2000

International round table discussion analyzing the cases of  Mumia Abu-Jamal and Shaka Sankafa, held in the Televisión Cubana  studios on June 19, 2000, Year of the 40th Anniversary of Patria o  Muerte.

Randy Alonso: Good afternoon to all our TV viewers and radio  listeners. For those who know the legal and penal system of the  United States, it is painful and shocking, although not really  surprising, that a six-year-old Cuban boy is being unjustly detained and  suffering the abuse of being held far from his homeland.

Cases of judicial errors, of sentences based on skin color or  poverty, or the use of false testimony, are frequent in U.S. society.  Today, in our round table discussion, we will be speaking about these  issues and about a number of cases which deserve the attention of the  international public, and particularly the Cuban public. These include  the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and African- American  political activist from Philadelphia, who was unjustly accused of  killing a white police officer and sentenced to the death penalty 18  years ago.

 For this analysis, I am being accompanied by a special panel for  today's round table. With us here today are Ms. Pam Africa,  coordinator of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia  Abu-Jamal; Rosemari Mealy, an attorney from New York and friend of  Mumia, as well as a leading activist in the New York African-American  community; and Leonard Weinglass, a prestigious attorney from New York,  a graduate of Yale University, and the principal defense attorney for  Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 Also with us are Gloria Rubac, an activist in the Texas Death  Penalty Abolition Movement, who has accompanied us at other round  table discussions; Gloria La Riva, a trade union leader in California  and member of the International Action Center, who has been very active  for a long time in the solidarity movement with Cuba; Lennox Hinds, a  law professor at Rutgers University and a prestigious lawyer in the  United States; and Monica Moorehead, leader of the Workers World Party,  as well as that party's presidential candidate.

 This is the composition of our panel this afternoon. As you will see,  this is a very special round table discussion. We will have simultaneous  interpretation for our TV viewers, for them to be able to understand  what we are going to discuss here, which is very important for us, for  our people, to provide them with a closer look at the inner workings of  U.S. society.

 It just so happens that exactly 47 years ago today, at 8:00 p.m.,  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in the United States,  victims of the Cold War and the U.S. legal system. They left two  young sons behind. One of them, Robert, was only six years old, the same  age as Elián Gonzalez. That was one of the worst crimes of the times.  Other victims have since followed, and one of them is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 What were the feelings of this journalist and political activist  after being unjustly sentenced to the death penalty? Let us look at this  video where he speaks about his own experience.

 (video) Mumia Abu-Jamal: I am absolutely innocent of the charge I was  charged of. I am absolutely not guilty of the charges I was convicted  of.

 Interviewer: How did you feel at the point when you were handed the  death sentence back in 1982.

 Mumia Abu-Jamal: I guess angry. Intensely angry. A feeling of  injustice that rankled to the core of my soul. Anger, injustice,  outrage, fear, mixed emotions from the whole world. But a certainty that  it would not stand, a certainty that it would be overturned. I still  feel that.

 (end of video) Randy Alonso: These were statements made by Mumia  about how he felt when he found out that he had been unjustly  sentenced to death. Pam, you know Mumia, who was in Philadelphia at the  time. What was the atmosphere, the context in Philadelphia when he was  sentenced to death? Pam Africa: It was one of the most brutal, and still  is one of the most brutal, oppressive, racist governments in the world.  Mumia's desire at that time was to expose the racism and brutality of  the Rizzo administration in Philadelphia.

 During that time, a young black man by the name of Cornell Warren, a  worker, coming home from work, was handcuffed with his hands behind his  back, taken behind the Afro-American museum, deliberately shot in the  back of the head. Winston X Hood, another black man, was beaten savagely  and then shot. None of the police officers ever did a day in jail.

 José Reyes, another Latino, who was beaten to death right before his  wife. Mumia's desire was to expose this. When he came upon the MOVE  organization, where the government had actually covered up the brutal  killing of a three-week-old baby, Life Africa, of the MOVE organization,  Mumia said this rankled him to the core, and he wanted to expose that.  It was injustice all the way around.

 Mumia then started covering the MOVE trials, and before too long, the  Rizzo administration attacked the MOVE home, despite evidence and  overwhelming support from the community, that stated very clearly that  the MOVE organization is a revolutionary organization and its desire was  to expose the injustice.

 What Mumia saw and others saw was the brutal attack, the attempted  murder of people before your very eyes. They had stated that black  men who were killed attacked the administration, attacked cops, but what  Mumia saw and what was exposed around the world, the brutal beating of  Delbert Africa, a black man who was surrendering, hands in the air, no  gun, nothing. And right before the world, this man was accused of having  a gun and a carbine. Mumia got involved in this case, and the  administration went after him behind that.

 Rosemari Mealy: And if I might add, Randy, prior to Mumia's  involvement in the MOVE organization, we should take the guests back to  1967. In Philadelphia, 3000 schoolchildren marched on the Board of  Education in that city, demanding black cultural curriculum, and Mumia  at that time was between 13 and 14 years old. And he led that movement  to some extent. I would say that given the Federal Bureau of  Investigation files and documents which his attorney will discuss here  this evening, Mumia was targeted by the Philadelphia police at a very,  very early age. We were both members of the Black Panther Party in  Philadelphia at that time, also. And Mumia played a leadership role even  before he was 16 years old. Philadelphia was known at that time as being  one of the worst cities that attacked community groups, community  organizations that dared to stand up and struggle the brutality of that  city's police force.

 There were many killings similar to the ones that Pam mentioned  later, in which Mumia, under his leadership in the Black Panther  Party, organized party members to go into the community to identify  those police who were charged with murdering the youth of the city, and  he organized us to create posters that we posted all over the city, with  the photographs of those policemen. That infuriated the Frank Rizzo  regime, which was the mayor at the time, and again he was targeted as a  leader.

 Later on, the Black Panther Party organized what was called a  Revolutionary Convention in Philadelphia, at which time we planned to  rewrite the Constitution of the United States, given the realities of  what was happening in our communities all over the United States. The  Rizzo regime, again, working in collusion with the FBI, organized a  concerted attack against the Black Panther Party, and raided our  organizations. And in a way to expose the African-American community to  the militancy of the Panther Party, they forced Panther men to strip  naked in the streets, while we as Panther women were strip searched. And  the mayor at that time said, You see what I did? I caught those Black  Panthers with their pants down. This was a deliberate attempt to  undermine and destroy the Party, because it forced the Black Panther  leadership to be imprisoned with high bails. Mumia Abu-Jamal emerged at  age 15 years old, as a leader of the Black Panther Party in  Philadelphia, and this infuriated the police department.

 So by the time his skills as a journalist in the Black Panther  Party, he used those skills to expose to the entire world, through  the Black Panther Party newspaper, what was happening in that city. And  that just infuriated the police force and the mayor, to the point that  we can go to his FBI files, where he is identified as a threat to the  community, and as a threat that had to be stopped. So what follows,  then, is his relationship to the MOVE organization, because he is  already targeted as a militant, as a revolutionary, by the forces of  that city.

 Randy Alonso: Thank you, Rosemari, for offering us your view as well.  You were a friend of Mumia's, you have continued to visit him in prison,  and so together with Pam you have given us a clearer picture of who  Mumia was and what what was happening in Philadelphia in 1982, when  Mumia was unjustly sentenced. I would like to look at a very brief  excerpt from a documentary shown by HBO, where Mumia himself speaks  about the night when the alleged crime took place.

 (video) Announcer: The nearest he has got to describing what happened  that night is in his recent book. In a passage of surreal, almost  abstract prose, Jamal describes his sensation of moving in and out of  consciousness after he was shot. Mumia Abu-Jamal: I'm sleeping, sort of.

 It has the languorous feel of sleep, with none of the rest. Time  seems slower, easier, less oppressive. I feel strangely light. I look  down and see a man slumped on the curve, his head resting on his chest,  his face downcast. "Damn, that's me!" A jolt of recognition ripples  through me.

 A cop walks up to the man and kicks him in the face. I feel it, but I  don't feel it. Three cops join the dance, kicking, blackjacking the  bloody, handcuffed fallen form. Two grab each arm, pull the man up, and  ram him headfirst into a steel utility pole.

 He falls. "Daddy?"  "Yes Babygirl?"  "Why are those men beating you like that?"  "It's okay, Babygirl, I'm okay."  "But why, Daddy? Why did they shoot you and why are they hitting and  kicking you, Abu?"

 "They've been wanting to do this for a long time, Babygirl, but  don't worry, Daddy's fine. See? I don't even feel it." Consciousness  returns to find me cuffed, my breath sweet with the metallic taste of  blood, in darkness. I lie on the paddy wagon floor and am informed by  the anonymous crackle of the radio that I am en route to the police  administration building a few blocks away.

 I feel no pain-just the omnipresent pressure that makes every bloody  breath a labor. I am en route to the police administration building,  presumably on the way to die. (end of video) Randy Alonso: This was  Mumia reading from one of his books, where he speaks about the dark  night that led to him being unjustly sentenced to the death penalty.

 Leonard, you have been Mumia's principal defense  attorney. In you opinion, what has the legal process been like, what  irregularities have been committed, and what steps have been taken in  this process? Leonard Weinglass: The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal reflects  the long history of death penalty litigation directed against  African-Americans in the United States, and unfortunately the current  situation as well.

 As a 28-year-old African-American, he was charged with the killing of a  white police officer. That trial, like the trial of many others in a  similar situation, reflected the three factors which make these  proceedings very unfair under any standard. The three factors are race,  class and politics. On the issue of race, a study that was done by the  most prestigious government agency in the United States, the General  Accounting Office, concluded that it is undeniable that in death penalty  litigation, race is a factor. And it is reflected in the populations on  death row. In the city of Philadelphia, where Mumia is from, there are  126 people on death row. All but 13 are people of color.

 And when you look at the history, there have been 18,000 executions in  the United States in the 200-year history of the republic. And of those  18,000, just 38 were executions of white people accused of killing a  person of color . So it's not just the race of the accused that matters,  it's also the race of the victim. Clearly, in America, a white life is  worth more than a black life.

 On the issue of class, again there is no question that among the 3600  men and women on death row in America, there are no millionaires. There  is no one in the upper middle class. As a matter of fact, Mumia is one  of the few even in the middle class.

 And the population on death row is in the main the poorest of the  poor. The product of America's worst housing, worst education, worst  medicine, worst environment.

 The studies of the 3600 indicate that over 90% were themselves  victims as children of sexual violence and physical violence. And so  these are the least powerful of the people in the country. And they must  rely in their processes, in their cases, on the state providing them  with a lawyer, and with the means to defend themselves. And like in the  case of Mumia, the money that was necessary was not forthcoming. Mumia  did not have an investigator when he went to trial. He was not given  money for an expert witness, for a doctor, for an expert on firearms,  and his lawyer, a pathetic man who has now lost his license to practice  law entirely, did no investigation, talked to no witnesses, admitted  that he was utterly unprepared for the trial.

 You have already heard how politics influenced the case against  Mumia. Pam and Rosemari have explained it. But in the system itself,  politics, in most cases, is a factor. The district attorney who decides  whether or not a case should be a death case is an elected official,  elected with the support of the police unions, a person who looks to the  next election, and not at the case as a matter of justice.

 The district attorney who ordered a death case for Mumia became the  mayor of the city of Philadelphia. Now he is the national chairman of  the Democratic Party. Had he decided not to prosecute Mumia, he would  not have become the mayor, he would not be the chairman of the  Democratic Party. So political ambition is a factor in most of these  cases. And in the trial itself of Mumia, the prosecution used the  political statements of Mumia 12 years earlier, when he was 16 years  old, in order to convince this mainly white jury that not only is he a  black man charged with a crime, but he is a dangerous political radical.

 The United States Supreme Court has said you cannot use a man's  politics to give the death penalty, but they did in Mumia's case. And up  till now, this has been accepted. His case was assigned to a judge who  has sent more people to death row than any sitting judge in the United  States. As a matter of fact, he has sent twice as many to death row as  the judge who is in second place. The person who was assigned as Mumia's  prosecutor had previously put an innocent man in prison for more than  ten years, before it was found out that he had wrongly prosecuted the  case.

 The police have threatened Mumia's witnesses. One of them came  forward now and said that she lied when she testified because she was  threatened by the police. Two witnesses said they did not come forward  because the police had threatened them, and they weren't available to  Mumia during the trial.

 The highest-ranking police officer on the scene of the crime has  since plead guilty to corruption, and has been removed from the  force. So it was a combination of the bias of the court, the  ineffectiveness of Mumia's attorney, that prevented him from calling  witnesses in his favor, including his brother, who should have been a  witness. We attempted years later to bring his brother into court; I had  called him. But the judge ruled that if his brother came to court, he  would have to go to jail on existing accusations against him, and he  told me that if he were to go to jail after testifying for his brother,  the police would kill him. And so he did not come.

 His case now, after 18 years, is before a federal court in the  United States. This is the first time that Mumia is before a judge  who is not elected, and who serves for life. And we have filed 29  separate claims that call for a new trial for Mumia. Any one of those  claims should give Mumia a new trial, and we are waiting now to hear  from this judge. And we will hear from him before the year is out, and  we will be in court with Mumia to see whether or not he gets a new  process, where a new jury and a new judge could decide whether Mumia is  guilty or not. We are convinced his innocence will be clearly shown. But  we have a problem. In 1996, the law has changed, and it has changed in a  way that makes Mumia's appeal, even in the federal courts, very  difficult.

 It's the problem that Shaka faced in Texas, and Mumia faces the  same problem. Before 1996, Mumia would have a good chance for a new  trial. Now it 's very difficult. And so we are concerned. But there has  been a major mobilization, in the United States and in other countries  as well, to save Mumia. And we are hopeful that when this federal judge  finally hears all the evidence, he will have the courage to set aside  this 1996 law and to grant Mumia what he has been deserving for 18  years, namely a fair opportunity to prove his innocence.

 Randy Alonso: You referred to the fact that poverty and race have  an important bearing on the accusations, on the crimes for which  people are charged.

 I was reading some figures provided by U.S. newspaper editor Joel  Olson, in a recently published book. He says that in the United  States, it is a crime to be poor, and that the more poor people there  are, the more criminals they will see. He says that there are five  million Americans without housing, 37 million who do not have access to  health insurance, 30 million who are illiterate, along with another 30  million who are functionally illiterate; over one million U.S. citizens  are in prison, and 20% of the population lives below the poverty line.  All of these figures form part of the context in which the legal and  police systems operate, which have a high racial component.

 Those of us who were able to see the documentary about Mumia that was  aired on television last Wednesday were able to see the famous Judge  Sabo, who condemned Mumia, and who repeatedly refused his appeal. Who is  Sabo, and what has happened to him?

 Leonard Weinglass: Judge Sabo, the judge you referred to, has been  forcibly retired by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but not before he  did damage to Mumia's case. They waited until he made his rulings, which  are very harmful to Mumia in his appeal. And only after he made these  rulings did they forcibly retire him. He should have been retired a long  time ago. He himself was a police officer, a high- ranking police  officer, for 16 years, before he became a judge. As a judge, he  continued to consider himself a police officer. He was a member of the  same police union as the alleged victim in Mumia's case. We asked him to  remove himself from the case because he couldn't be fair, and he refused  to do that. And so he is gone.

 If Mumia has a new trial, he will have a new judge. But we are still  hurt by the very biased and discriminatory actions that he took in  reviewing Mumia's case.

 Randy Alonso: In your opinion, aside from the discriminatory  judgment, Mumia 's case became a political case as well.

 Leonard Weinglass: Oh, absolutely. Mumia's case, I believe, was a  political case right from the very beginning, and has continued to be a  political case, and has now gathered a great deal of support. He is the  only former Black Panther on death row in the United States, he is the  only broadcast journalist on death row in the United States, he is an  author of three books, a man now with a Master's degree from the  University of California, a graduation speaker, a man who has written  several hundred articles that have been published, and there is no doubt  that this is a very prominent political case.

 Randy Alonso: Thank you, Leonard. I stress this, because for those of us  who have been participating in these round tables for the last several  months, we have stated repeatedly that Elián's case has also become a  political case in the U.S. courts, and there have been antecedents. I  think it is important that we underline this aspect.

 But you referred to the movement of solidarity which has been  generated in the case of Mumia, and Pam is the coordinator of an  organization which has supported this movement.

 Pam, how has this solidarity movement been organized around Mumia's  case, and what impact has it had?

 Pam Africa: The solidarity movement is one that started in  Philadelphia and went around the world. You have such people as  President Jacques Chirac of France, unions... and on April 24, the  day of Millions for Mumia on the West Coast, the unions shut down the  entire shipping area on behalf of Mumia. So you have unions involved,  you have students who are involved, who have defied the government to  try to stop them from speaking out against Mumia. You have the National  Association of Black Policemen, who have stood up and said they have  investigated this case, and they found out that Mumia deserves a new  trial, and they question a government that with.... Unions shutting down  the entire west coast, when you have presidents, when you have mayors,  the mayor of San Francisco to put his job on the line and state that  Mumia did not have a fair trial, and demand a fair trial, when you have  people take to the street and when the governor's convention happened in  95, right after Governor Ridge signed Mumia Abu-Jamal's death warrant,  when you have people of color, when you have white people, when you have  people of high ranking in society go and demonstrate at the governors  convention, you know we had the CIA, the FBI, you know, all kinds of  people in power with guns, and will not hesitate to use it against them,  when these people went after the governor they disrupted that convention  up there.

 Also in San Francisco, when the president was in San Francisco it was  the airing of the book Live from Death Row, thousands of people took to  the streets, and there were protests about Mumia, and when they found  out that the president was a few blocks away, proceeded to go there and  demonstrate,.

 When you have college students who have also taken to the streets and  have been brutally beaten, locked up, and the movement continues to grow  more and more, Mumia's desire has always been to expose the injustice  and that's exactly what he's done. He has taken the injustice of not  only the Philadelphia police brutality, but the brutality throughout the  United States, around the world. The movement is one that is  magnificent. Rosemari Mealy: Let's not forget that when, prior to Mumia  being arrested, he had begun to investigate, in Philadelphia, some of  the corruption within the Philadelphia police department. His  commentaries on the radio station had begun to expose... that eventually  the federal government had to go into Philadelphia and investigate the  police there, and subsequently, as many of the lawyers here know, court  trials that had sentenced people, those people had to be released.  Mumia's commentaries also had been banned from national public radio  because of the power of his pen and his voice. Even inside and on death  row he's viewed as a threat still, and his latest book All Things  Censored, actually the commentaries that he had organized for national  public radio and through the organizing efforts of the Fraternal Order  of Police, which is the body that represents police nationally, those  commentaries, they did not even want to get them on the air.

 So, he, even behind, on death row--as a journalist, as a stellar  journalist, an award-winning journalist-he poses a threat to them,  even more so. Pam Africa: Yes, in many of the books he exposes not  only the attack on blacks, but the attack on black officials,  congressmen and wives and all, who was feeding the poor, the  disadvantaged in Philadelphia who lived in the subway, underground, was  attacked by the police.

 Mumia, from death row, wrote about this case; another state senator's  wife, riding home in a car was stopped and the cops beat and banged on  her windows. And you know Mumia again exposed the corruption around the  world, you know, it's in those books, also was in those books, are the  brutal murders of inmates inside the prisons. They didn't stop Mumia's  book because of these things, I mean, when they talked about stopping  his book, they never once stopped Mumia and said we're stopping this  book because you lied about the corruption within the system.

 They stopped that book to stop him exposing it, he was never charged  with lying.

 Randy Alonso: In this solidarity movement that you mentioned,  Cuban organizations have also been active: the Cuban Union of Writers  and Artists (UNEAC), the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC), the Cuban  Friendship Institute (ICAP), the National Jurists Union. They have  issued statements at various times supporting the liberation of Abu-  Jamal, along with various international organizations with headquarters  here in Havana, such as the Organization for Solidarity with the Peoples  of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL) and and the Continental  Organization of Latin American and Caribbean Students (OCLAE). Some of  the representatives of these organizations are present here at this  round table. With respect to the specific case of Philadelphia, I have  some information which says that while only 9% of the total population  of Pennsylvania is African-American, the percentage of prisoners  condemned to death is 62%, which is considered to be the highest rate of  racial disparity in any state.

 A 1998 studied conducted at the University of Iowa shows that a youth  who grows up in Philadelphia is 11.5 times more likely to end up on  death row than in Georgia, Alabama, and other southern states, where the  population is largely black. So this is the context in which the case of  Mumia occurred.

 I have just been informed that telephone contact has been established  for an interview from our international center. Journalist Miguel Angel  Masjuán is on the line with Jeff Mackler, who directs one of the  coalitions for solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 Over to you, Masjuán. Miguel Angel Masjuán: We have on the line Jeff  Mackler, who is the director of one of the organizations calling for the  liberation of Mumia, and also one of the national coordinators for the  defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal. We have asked him to share with us his  impressions regarding recent events.

 Mr. Mackler, how are you today?

 Jeff Mackler: I'm fine, thank you.

 Miguel Angel Masjuán: It's a pleasure for me to talk to you. What can  you tell us about Mumia and the most recent events?

 Jeff Mackler: I visited Mumia on July 12, and his morale was very  high. He has been following very closely the national debate which  has begun in the United States regarding his case and the death  sentence, because it is now very clear that there are many people who  are innocent and will be sanctioned by the so-called U.S. legal system.  Mumia is very concerned about the life of Gary Graham, whose African  name is Shaka Sankofa, and whose execution is scheduled for June 22.  Gary Graham is innocent; there are seven eyewitnesses who can prove that  he did not kill the person whose death he is being accused of. However,  the law in Texas prohibits the presentation of this information, because  30 days had passed following his sentencing, and Gary has been in prison  for more than 20 years.

 Mumia is a very impressive person. He has been following the  debate regarding the reactionary nature of the U.S. legal system, and he  has also followed very closely the mass actions and demonstrations of a  whole generation fighting for human and democratic rights in the United  States. He has headed up the struggle against the execution of the 3600  people who are on death row in the United States. He has made the best  use possible of his time in jail, and reads all different kinds of  books, history, literature. And of course, we told him about this  television program that was going to be aired in Cuba; he felt very  happy and asked me to convey to the Cuban people his greetings, and his  support for their struggle for human and democratic rights. As you know,  Mumia, like many people in the United States, is on the side of Elián  and his father, in favor of their immediate return to Cuba.

 At the moment there are thousands of people who are demonstrating  in support of Mumia. Yesterday we had a demonstration called Bring  Back Mumia, in which 6000 people participated, and thousands in funds  were raised for his cause.

 He is also very much interested in the revolutionary struggle and  the human rights struggle, and his defense committee has waged a  struggle to save the life of the person who will be executed within a  few days, in other words, Gary Graham. Mumia has headed the struggle to  save his life, and his followers have joined him in this struggle.

 We spent two hours talking about all kinds of things, about  literature, and about the whole struggle being waged all around the  world, and by prominent Americans, in support of his cause. He is a  unique person. He has been in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day  during the last years of his imprisonment, and he has criticized the  hypocrisy of the U.S. legal system.

 We have also talked about what he will do when we are finally able to  get him out of jail. He said he would like to go out and walk around for  two hours, go out to eat, and visit Cuba, so I think you should be  prepared to receive Mumia when he is a free man and to share with him  the freedom that the Cuban people has gained at such a high price.

 Miguel Angel Masjuán: Thank you for your cooperation. As you know, at  the moment here in Cuba we have a special program on Mumia and we hope  that he will be freed as soon as possible. Thank you. And now we go back  to our round table after listening to Jeff Mackler. (end of telephone  interview)

 Randy Alonso: We have heard these telephone statements. We have been  discussing the race issue, and how it affects justice in the United  States, but this does not only happen in Philadelphia. We have a report  from CNN, from Houston, which says that at least nine men have been  condemned to death in Texas, following the recommendations of a  psychologist, based on the race of the accused, according to a judicial  report. This draws attention once again to the use of capital punishment  in this state.

 The death sentence that led to the investigation was overturned on  Monday by the United States Supreme Court-in other words, last  Monday.

 Phychologist Walter Quijano had testified that Argentine day-worker  Saldaño, charged with murder, was a potential threat to society, due to  his Hispanic origin. Texas has executed 218 people since 1982, many more  than in other U.S. state.

 We were saying that Mumia was not the only innocent person to be  sentenced to death. In Texas, for example, there is also the case of  African-American Shaka Sankofa, who Mackler spoke about during his phone  interview. Sankofa has been unjustly charged and sentenced for the  murder of a white man, and his execution is scheduled to take place in  three days from now, on June 22.

 These are some statements made recently by Shaka and some of his  relatives, included in this short video segment:

 (video) Shaka's attorney: There is no doubt that Gary Graham could  die as a result of a crime that he didn't commit.

 Shaka's family: They might be making a mistake. If you don't have  money, there is no justice. Somebody has to do something. If there  were justice, things would be different. James Dixon: The issue is  whether or not Gary Graham was condemned as a result of a crime and  after a fair trial. According to that mistaken affidavit, the  investigator that was hired on his behalf, according to him, Gary Graham  didn't have a fair trial.

 Listen to this: I remember that from the very beginning, the  prosecutor said that Gary Graham was guilty, and that affected my  investigation. This might be unjust, but this is the way it happened.

 Doug O'Brien: Now listen. This legal team acted on their own; the  whole judicial system depends on the prosecutors and their work,  which is to investigate all cases and to represent the clients the  best way they can. Chester Thornton: This is real proof of the  statement made in the affidavit. Gary Graham: I wasn't too worried  about it at the time, because there were some other robberies, and as it  was said, it was supposed that I was guilty of the robberies and  therefore that I had been guilty of the murder.

 Doug O'Brien: The concept of interrogation is one of the most  important ones in our country, and of course they took advantage of this  in the trial and after this, any person could be sentenced to death for  crimes they did not commit.

 Dennis Graham: His attorneys did not act on his behalf, nor did the lead  witness. According to what they said, there was no other option but to  declare him guilty.

 Randy Alonso: These were statements made by Shaka Sankofa and  other individuals involved in the case. I want to clarify to our  viewers that Shaka is also known as Gary Graham, which is why you  will hear both names used.

 We have here with us Gloria Rubac, who has been very active in the  movement for solidarity with Shaka in Texas and has also been  involved in general with the issue of prisons and the death sentence in  this state, which, as we were saying, has executed more people in recent  years that any other in the United States. Gloria, I would like you to  refer briefly to Shaka's case; how he is, his frame of mind, because as  we said, he is scheduled to be executed in three days; what efforts have  been made, how the solidarity movement is working, and any other  relevant information about Texas you can offer us.

 Gloria Rubac: Well, first of all, to talk about Shaka's case, I was so  struck by what Leonard was saying about Mumia, because there's so many  parallels. Shaka was arrested when he was 17 years old. According to  many international laws, this is not supposed to happen - that juveniles  are put on death row.

 But in the United States it does. There were seven witnesses to the  murder of the man that Shaka is accused of killing, only one of them was  ever called at his trial. Shaka had a court-appointed attorney who was  incompetent and unfortunately has over a dozen people on death row in  Texas. We saw in the video, the investigator for the attorney who was  told, "Don't bother to investigate, because the man is guilty."

 In Shaka's case there was no evidence, except this one woman who  claims to have seen him. There was no blood, there was no  fingerprints, there was no confession, there was no hair, nothing put  him at this crime, except one woman who mistakenly said that it was  Shaka who committed the crime. Out of the seven eyewitnesses to the  crime, she was the farthest away and saw him for three or four seconds.  Other witnesses saw the crime take place and saw the person who did it -  some of them for 15-30 minutes while he was in the grocery store where  the crime took place.

 Shaka is from Houston, Texas, which is Harris County. Houston has  executed so many people that if it were a state it would be third  behind Texas and then Virginia, as the highest number of executions.

 The District Attorney in Texas, like you were talking about politics, is  very proud of his record of executing people and race and class play an  extremely large role. The District Attorney usually will not even charge  and try somebody for capital murder, which carries the death penalty, if  they have their own attorney. But Shaka, like 90% of the people on death  row in the Unites States, have a court- appointed attorney. He was from  a poor family, he's African-American, a very sad and unfortunately I  guess, typical of people on death row family in that his mother was  mentally ill, his father was an alcoholic, and by the age of 17 he had  two children and had been living on his own for most of his life. After  19 years though, on death row, I have to say that Shaka is a different  person, and he has become not only politically aware and politically  active, but a revolutionary. And for these reasons, even more so, the  state of Texas wants to execute him. But also for these reasons, like  Mumia, he has developed support all over the world.

 Today, the show has been shown on June 19, which is not only the  anniversary of the Rosenbergs' execution, but it's June teenth in  Texas. June 19 was the day that Texas slaves received the word that they  were free and it took two years, after the civil war had ended for this  to come to Texas. So this weekend there have been many, many events in  Texas celebrating June teenth, celebrating, but also protesting because  of the impending execution of Gary Graham, Shaka, in three days.

 The Texas Republicans just entered their convention in Houston. There  were protests every day outside this convention, and in fact our group  participated in the June teenth parade. We had 5000 posters with a  smiling picture of Gary Graham, when he was a juvenile, before he went  to death row, that were distributed all over downtown Houston.

 The movement to save Shaka is growing day by day just as the  movement against the death penalty is growing. And you talked about CNN,  all of the major... I see Newsweek magazine... all the media in the  United States is looking at the death penalty now, and looking at Texas,  because Texas is the execution capital of the world. George Bush has  executed 133 people in the five years that he's been governor - this is  a record that hasn't been met for over a hundred years.

 And Texas has executed 230 people, so we have a big job in Texas,  but fortunately people are looking now not only at the innocent on  death row, and people like Shaka, but also those that may be guilty and  did not get a fair trial, did not have an attorney, didn't have money.  And now we're seeing, like CNN reported, that just because you are  African-American or Latino, this has been used to sentence you to death  because this expert witness said - one of the questions you have to  answer in Texas to be given the death penalty is, is this person going  to be a danger in the future. And now it has come out that Texas has  used expert witnesses to say yes, this person is going to be a future  danger because they are Latino, or because they are African-American.  This racism goes all through the system in capital cases, capital murder  cases.

 Victor Saldaño from Argentina, is not the only one that fortunately  whose sentence has been overturned because of this racist testimony. One  out of ten people in prison in the United States are in the state of  Texas. Not just on death row where there's 460 people, but there's over  150,000 people in prison. The majority of those on death row, and the  majority of those in prison, are people of color.

 Like Mumia, in Gary's case, it's not just Texas law, but it's also  the 1996 law that Clinton approved, that is keeping the new evidence  about Shaka's case from being told.

 In 1993 Shaka's attorneys - he finally got good attorneys, and he  was fortunate to get some of the best - they did hundreds and  hundreds of hours of investigation and came up with - out of six  eyewitnesses to the crime - they came up with so much that would  prove him innocent, yet well, in 1993 they went to federal court and  said - look what we've found, this will prove Shaka innocent. The courts  told the attorneys- well, you haven't finished in the State Court,  finish there and then come back to Federal Court. The State Courts  turned him down.

 They took this information back to Federal Courts in 1996, but by  that time Clinton had already signed this new law - the Anti-  Terrorism and effective Death Penalty Act - and the courts said,  sorry, we can't work with it now.

 So no court has ever heard the new evidence, heard the six witnesses  that all give a very similar description of the killer - and it's not a  description that matches Shaka Sankofa. It's just too bad. So the only  legal option now that's pending is that, last Wednesday, his attorneys  filed an original writ of habeas corpus with the US Supreme Court. This  is not done often, and it's not ruled on favorably. The last time it was  ruled on favorably was in the 1920s. This is his only legal option.

 Other than this writ of habeas corpus, Shaka Sankoffa's life is in  the hands of George Bush, the governor of Texas - who is called  Governor Death - and the Board of Pardons and Paroles, all of whom  were appointed by George Bush. They can either grant him clemency or  grant him a conditional clemency or reverse... say that, okay, we can  look at the evidence and say that you're not guilty.

 His attorneys are asking for conditional clemency. We hope that  before Thursday this will happen. The movement is strong, and Shaka is  very strong. Like Mumia, he knows that his life is in the hands of the  people, and today there are demonstrations, on June 10, all over the  world. Bush will be in Palo Alto, California there's going to be  demonstrations there. We're optimistic that Shaka will be freed, and  actually we feel like we're seeing the beginning of the end of the death  penalty.

 Randy Alonso: This is another example of the injustice of the U.S.  legal system, and a very immediate one, because we're speaking about a  person that could perhaps be executed within a matter of hours. And as  you said, the June 12 issue of Newsweek devoted a large part of the  magazine to the death penalty in the United States. It says right here,  "Rethinking the Death Penalty", based on the articles that have been  published on this topic in the United States and the studies that have  been coming out. Here we have an article from the CNN interactive  service, which says that a recent study reveals that the death penalty  system in the United States is full of flaws, based on the number of  appeals that have been filed.

 The study, carried out by Colombia University in New York, found that  the appeals were successful in two-thirds of the cases used as an  example, from 1973 to 1995. In other words, two-thirds of the death  sentences were overturned because of mistakes committed during the  process. The main author of the study, James Liebman, said that most of  the cases were so badly structured that they had to be redone. As a  result, the study indicates that the death penalty system is  unsustainable in the United States, mainly because of the errors that  lead to this sentence in these cases.

 Now we have on line another important personality from the United  States, who has been willing to contribute to our round table  discussion today. Miguel Angel Masjuán has contacted the famous U.S.  actor Danny Glover, who has been an active participant in the movements  for the defense of Mumia and Chakka. He has been willing to express his  opinions to our round table discussion of today.

 Miguel Angel Masjuán: We have on the line the famous actor Danny  Glover, and we will be speaking to him about the round table  discussion we are holding today about Shaka Sankofa, the most recent  events, and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 (telephone interview) Mr. Glover, it is a pleasure to have you on  line. We would like to listen to your opinion about the latest events  with regards to Shaka Sankofa and Abu-Jamal.

 Danny Glover: It's really a pleasure for me to participate in this  kind of panel and to be able to talk to the Cuban people about the  situation here with regards to Shaka Sankofa and Jamal - a case which I  have been working on for seven years now.

 Seven years ago he had a stay of execution, he's been on death row  for nineteen years now, and there has come a time in which the  execution date is approaching, foreseen for June 22, I mean this  Thursday. At present we are doing everything we can to stop this  procedure.

 There was only one eyewitness who allegedly identified Shaka Sankofa. We  were trying to introduce new evidence that may prove him innocent, but  this has not been allowed as yet - we have not been able to do that. We  hope that the judicial system and even the influence of Governor Bush  will give us this opportunity.

 He has declared his innocence; he has been in this process for 19  years, and the procedure during the trial has been inadequate. We are  really at a very difficult moment and we are really doing everything  that we can.

 Miguel Angel Masjuán: Are you confident that you will be able to make  it?

 Danny Glover: Yes, we are confident that we will be able to keep up with  our struggle, we are confident that Shaka Sankofa is innocent. The  system here is quite efficient with regard to executions - it's like a  kind of death machine. We have gone down this road before, but we are  confident that we have done enough, we have organized, we have mobilized  many people. And we think that we will be able to keep up this struggle  to raise awareness among the American people and we hope to reach a  successful outcome.

 Miguel Angel Masjuán: Thank you very much, it has been a pleasure to  speak to you, we thank you for your cooperation. Very soon we will be  able to contact you again.

 Thank you. (end of telephone interview)

 We have just listened to actor Danny Glover, live from New York,  expressing his opinion on the case of Shaka Sankofa, who is supposed to  be executed very soon, according to the American justice system. Now we  will return to our round table discussion.

 Randy Alonso: Thank you, Masjuán, for this interview with actor  Danny Glover, and for the opportunity to hear his opinions on the  case of Shaka Sankofa.

 While preparing this round table discussion I was able to read some of  the book Criminal Injustice, which deals with the American prisons and  the injustices in the penal system of that country. And I found out that  the United States has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the  world - around 519 out of every 100,000 inhabitants of the United States  are in prison. And although African- American men make up only 6% of the  total U.S. population, according to 1996 studies, they account for close  to 50% of the prisoners in that country. That is to say, if the  incarceration rate for the country in general is 519 per 100,000, it is  3822 per 100,000 in the case of African-American men.

 One of the guests on our panel today is Dr. Lennox, a highly  prestigious lawyer in the United States who has defended numerous  political prisoners and has made a major contribution to the movement  for the defense of African-Americans. I would like to ask, Professor  Lennox, your opinion on the impact of racism in the U.S. penal system,  the injustices that are committed, and the situation of political  prisoners today in the United States.

 Lennox Hinds: If we look at the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, we actually see  someone who is an example of the racist and political application of the  law.

 In the United States the law is used as a mechanism of control, and in  many situations there is the perception of justice which confuses many.  And the United States government holds this out to the world that it is  the champion of law, it is the champion of human rights. But from its  very inception, from the very inception of the United States of America,  in the very fabric of the country, we see racism at play. Starting with  the constitution of the United States and the preamble to the  constitution, where the so-called founding fathers stood in the gravest  hypocrisy on land that was stolen from the Native American people. All  of them slave-holders, George Washington, Tom Jefferson, Ben Franklin,  all of the so-called founding fathers, they were the arch hypocrites,  using the law as a shield, so to speak, to in fact insulate their  racism.

 And so when we look at how the law operates today, we must look  backwards, to see the hypocrisy in the law. And Mumia Abu-Jamal is  only one of, similarly to Shaka Sankofa, of the victims of the racist  application of the law.

 In 1976 we filed a petition with the United Nations Human Rights Sub-  commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of  Minorities. And in that petition - this is a copy of the petition here.  This petition, with its appendices, we showed, that the United States  government, in the administration of justice violated the rights of  national minorities - not only African-Americans, but Hispanics, native  Americans and Asian Americans.

 It is unquestionable, when you examine how the law operates, if you look  at who is in prison, you will see, certainly, that the vast majority of  people are poor. And then if you look geographically around the United  States you will see that in the northeast you have blacks and Puerto  Ricans, if you look in the southwest, if you look in Arizona, New  Mexico, you see the majority of Chicanos. If you look in a state like  Minnesota, where you have a high percentage of native Americans, in the  urban centers you find the highest percentage are native Americans in  the jails. And so the argument cannot be that all of these national  minorities are, in fact, criminals. It is the criminalization, based  upon color.

 And so we look at Mumia, in terms of not only the question of race, but  also the question of politics, because he was a victim of the  counter-intelligence program of the FBI. And you've heard from our other  panelists here the issue of the Panthers; Rosemari Mealy talked about  the targeting of the Black Panther party.

 And with J. Edgar Hoover - J. Edgar Hoover, in 1967, came up with a  scheme. His view was that those individuals who were struggling against  their oppressive condition in the United States ought to be targeted and  destroyed. But he did not only focus on the Panthers, he focussed on  people like Harry Belafonte, Martin Luther King, Eartha Kitt; there were  a number, and you have somebody like Sammy Davis Jr. Now no one in their  clear thinking would consider Sammy Davis Jr. as dangerous. Yet these  were individuals who were targeted for surveillance, and then  individuals such as the Panthers were targeted for assassination. And so  you had the effects of this, which has resulted in political prisoners  within the United States. You have people like Leonard Peltier, a member  of the American Indian Movement, who has been in jail for over 25 years.  You have Sundiata Acoli, who was a former Black Panther, in prison for  over 27 years. You have Monda We Langa and Ed Poindexter in prison for  over 30 years; we have Sekou Odinga in prison for over 20 years, you  have Mutulu Shakur, and I could go down the list. The United States  denies that there are political prisoners in the country, but the  evidence is indisputable that those political prisoners exist.

 And if we also look at Mumia's case, he is a victim of police crime. The  police in the United States are the only government employees who have  the power and authority to use force to compel citizens to obey -  including deadly force. And it is in the use of deadly force that you  see the members of minority communities, who are victimized by the  police. And this is not just in New York, it's an example of some of the  most gross manifestations of it, but it is throughout the United States.  And it is not just a new phenomenon; if you go back to 1968, the Kerner  Commission reports, back then, in their findings, said that the police  represents an oppressive instrumentality, as perceived by the minority  communities. Within the white communities in the United States, the  police are viewed as individuals who walk little children across the  road, who give them a lollipop from time to time. But in the minority  communities they are the ones who, in fact, squeeze the bullet; they are  the ones who put a baton to somebody's head; they are the ones who put  their feet at the neck of the minorities. And that is the difference of  the reality of life in the United States. And let me finally talk about  the death penalty.

 The death penalty has been found to violate the international  convention against civil and political rights. It is in violation of the  Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is in violation of the  International Convention Against Racial Discrimination. All of these  instruments that have been signed, and now ratified by the United States  of America. But in the case of Shaka Sankofa, who at the age of 17, was  arrested for a crime that was committed at that time. It is the use of  the death penalty to kill our kids, to kill young people which is the  most egregious. Because again, if you look at the history of the United  States, there are 38 states that have the death penalty; 13 of those  states have no minimum age for the execution of an individual based upon  the time that they committed the offence. Ten states specify a minimum  age of 18; 14 states set ages between 13 and 17. And when you look at  who has been killed, the two youngest kids who were ever executed in the  United States have been 10-year- olds. One black and one Native American  in 1855 and 1857.

 Leonard Weinglass told you about statistics with respect to 18 out of  3,600 individuals executed. There hasn't been a single white man in the  history of the United States, who has ever been executed for raping a  black woman; yet when rape was considered a capital offence, out of the  455 people who were executed for the crime of rape, 405 were black. And  so we have to look at the law, and the hypocrisy of the use of the law,  and the illusion of justice under the law as it has been manifested in  the United States, as we examine these various cases.

 Randy Alonso: Thank you very much. I think that this has been a very  broad and concrete explanation of some cases indicating the level of  discrimination and injustice which exists today in U.S. society. And how  the blacks, the Latinos, the Chicanos, the native Americans of the  United States are discriminated against because of the color of their  skin and also their level of poverty or wealth within that society.

 We were talking about Texas a while ago, and together with Texas, New  York, and also Florida, the state of California has one of the highest  crime rates in the United States, and is also one of the states where  the greatest injustices are committed.

 Gloria comes from California, and I would like to ask her about her  opinion on the justice system in that state.

 Gloria La Riva: Well, it would be very hard to say which state is the  most repressive of the ones that you have mentioned - certainly  California, Texas, Virginia, New York, Pensylvania - but California has  the largest population of 32 million people, and yet in absolute and  relative terms it has the largest penal system in the world. There are  now over 188, 000 prisoners in California.

 And again, as the other people have spoken - Lennox and others - the  issue of race is one of the major factors. Although 60% of assaults,  rapes and murder are committed by white men in California, the rate of  incarceration for the same crimes for Black men is 17 times that of  white men. So it's a very high percentage of African-American and  Latinos in California who are in prison.

 California has been the state of a great deal of experimentation and  first application - for example the three-strikes law, which provides  for the third conviction -- it can even be a non-violent crime, a felony  -- can place somebody in prison for life, with no chance of parole. And  this has led to a great increase in the imprisonment. There has been  maximum-maximum security prisons - they are called control units - and  they exist throughout the country, but in California there is one in  particular, which I mentioned in a round table before - it's called  Pelican Bay Prison, in the very northern part of the state. Fifty-five  percent of the prisoners there are Chicano or other Latino, 55% - most  of them come from Los Angeles, because they've been identified as gang  members.

 And it's interesting to examine Los Angeles, California, because the Los  Angeles police department has done a huge assault on Latino men, and  African-American men, but especially of Latinos in recent years, where  they have identified in police records 112,000 young Latino men as gang  members.

 If you are on a street corner, you can be a gang member, with other  friends. If you are picked up, stopped by the police, you can be  identified as a gang member. So this is why so many of them are sent to  Pelican Bay prison, where they are placed in isolation.

 Recently in California Los Angeles there has been a big scandal that has  broken out in the Los Angeles police department, where it turns out now,  after the confession of a number of police, several thousand people who  are behind bars in California - mostly men, mostly African-American,  Latino men, were falsely convicted through coercion of witnesses,  through planted evidence, drugs, by the police on young people.

 There's one case that opened up the scandal, and it was a young man in  his 20s, a Latino man named Javier Francisco Ovando, and the police who  shot him was a Latino as well, but this police was caught with eight  pounds of cocaine, he was selling eight pounds of cocaine that he had  taken from the accused person. And they decided to target this man, this  Latino man; one evening they picked him up - this is the policeman's  confession - they picked him up, shot him in the head, he fell, they  picked him up again, shot him in the chest. As soon as he was stabilized  in the hospital they brought him in on a hospital bed to the court  house, charged him with attempted murder, even though this man had done  nothing - he was a man on the street, identified as a gang member -  charged him with attempted murder. He was sentenced to about 20 years to  life, and because the police was caught with the cocaine, he admitted to  this crime and admitted to many more crimes, now many police are under  indictment.

 This young man was asked by the newspapers, about three months ago; they  asked him, when you were on trial and convicted of attempted murder by  the police, falsely accused, why didn't you say anything? He said my  lawyers told me nobody would believe me, so don't even bother telling  your story.

 And it turns out that there are many, many young people - there have  been actual murders by the police. So here we have a very corrupt police  force in Los Angeles, a prison in northern California filled with  African-American, Latino men; who knows how many lives have been ruined.

 But I want to bring up one thing quickly, and that is that we live in  the richest country in the world, the United States, those of us who are  here. The richest state in the United States is California. And yet why  are there 2 million prisoners? Why is there so much poverty? There is no  excuse for poverty in the United States.

 The unemployment rate has gone down a little bit, it's about almost 5%;  and yet even if you have a job, it's almost impossible to live in  California. In San Francisco, California, the average price of a home is  now 460,000 dollars. Nobody can buy a home if you're a worker, you can  hardly live on your wages. So more and more people, who have low- paying  jobs, some get involved in economic crime, but some are criminalized for  being poor, and so the prisons are filling up with poor people. Some  women who engage in prostitution can spend years in prison; drug  addiction; there are many socioeconomic problems because of the economic  system of capitalism. You take a man like Bill Gates who has 100 billion  dollars of personal wealth, he couldn't even spend a billion dollars in  his lifetime, but he has more than enough money to solve all the  economic problems in our country of the poor. But he is rich because  he's made the poor poor - he employs prisoners, for pennies an hour, to  produce his products, to make Bill Gates a wealthy, wealthy man. So  that's the injustice.

 Randy Alonso: It was in California, precisely, where a great many  acts of police violence were reported in the early years of this  decade, and last decade as well. We will always remember, for  example, the case of Rodney King. But in New York, as well, there was  recently a highly publicized case, that of Amadou Diallo. Rosemari was  covering this incident in New York, and so she knows the details of this  case. She can tell us a bit about police brutality, which is another  facet of racism in U.S. society, and how it is manifested in the state  of New York.

 Rosemari Mealy: Thank you, Randy. The increasing social polarization is  a global trend, we have to look at it as a global trend, and if you do  that, you'll find that in New York you have one of the sharpest  indicators in the United States. And this social reality that we're  talking about here has everything to do with policing of the working  class in each of the cities, communities, hamlets, wherever we live. And  I preference my remarks with that statement, in looking at what actually  happened to Amadou Diallo.

 Amadou Diallo was a young man who was only 20 years of age, he was  an immigrant from Guinea, Africa. And Amadou Diallo actually  represents a trend of phenomenon in the United States, where you have  this vast change of the immigration process taking place. And we've seen  how, in New York alone, over the past two decades over one million  immigrants have arrived in New York City. So you have a situation in  which the city has become poorer, it has become darker in hue, and we've  seen where the original residents have engaged in what is known as,  quote, "white flight", where masses of whites move out of the city, who  cannot deal with the racism and quote, the "browning of America". The  schools are overcrowded in the city and we've talked about the  unemployment rates and what we have here.

 Amadou Diallo found himself in that kind of a situation where you  have a police force in New York city which comprises 38,000 police,  38,000 police, police the city of New York, and only 11.4% of that  police force is black, and something like around 13% is Latino.

 The racism then of those who are predominant in policing, manifests  itself in what is known as police brutality. On February 4, when Amadou  was murdered, and we say that he was actually executed in cold blood, he  was supposed to have been a suspect in a, quote, "rape situation". The  police approached him and in his own way of attempting to identify  himself, he held up his wallet; subsequently in doing that he received  shots in his body that have been immortalized in the words of the  musician Bruce Springsteen, who has attempted to take what is happening  in the city by using the culture to describe what is happening.

 We thought that given the history of New York, given the fact that  the Federal, the U.S. justice department had already begun an  investigation of police brutality in the city, over three years ago,  that some of their activities would be curbed, after the murders of the  elderlies such as Eleanor Bumpers, we saw the situation in which Latinos  were shot down, and it's just been a series of murders committed by the  police.

 In Amadou Diallo's case there was a real movement demanding justice for  him. Again, as Lennox has talked about how the court system is used in a  political sense, rather than the trial taking place in New York City  that involved a policeman who had murdered Amadou, the trial was moved,  we call that the venue was moved, to the northern part of New York  state, where the predominance of the residents in that part of the state  were white.

 So you have a predominant all-white jury, with the exception of a  few blacks who actually tried these four policemen, and those four  policemen were exonerated. So Amadou Diallo's murderers, as with the  murderers of so many countless other blacks in New York, are free. And  this rage that the city and the country is experiencing now, is creating  a situation where youths are organizing against police brutality,  against the criminality of the police, and again justice perhaps is  looked upon only as taking place in the streets, and the courts then  become supplementary to struggling for justice.

 Randy Alonso: I think that the case of Rodney King and Diallo are  only the tip of the iceberg of discrimination and police brutality in  U.S. society, not only in New York, but also in many of the states of  the union. And this is also reflected in the courts and in the prisons.  I have information here that says that African-Americans are given much  longer sentences than whites. In the federal prison system, it says,  sentences for African-Americans are close to 20% longer that those given  to whites for similar crimes, and more than 60% of women prisoners in  the United States are African-American or Latino.

 In the video that was aired Wednesday, Mumia Abu-Jamal spoke about  his impressions of U.S. prisons. I would like for us to listen to  that excerpt again.

 (video) Mumia Abu-Jamal: The term I like to use is a bright shining  hell, over 200 million dollars construction. The cells are similar in a  sense to this very room. Once someone closes that door, there is no  sound, there is the sound of silence in your cell.

 It is difficult, verging on impossible, for you to conduct a  conversation with anyone other than the man who is directly adjacent to  you, right next to you, in fact, because there are no bars, there is no  ambient sound, there is the sound of an air conditioner, and the sound  of silence, or the silence you create in your own cell. So the sense of  isolation is all but total, you see, because you're cut off from even  the silent presence of people.

 (end of video)

 Randy Alonso: Monica, after listening to these words by Mumia, what can  you say about the current situation in the U.S. prisons, the so- called  prison industry, and what is the situation of women in U.S. correctional  facilities?

 Monica Moorehead: Well, just to begin, there is a racist war going on  inside of the United States. You have heard part of what this war is all  about. But this war has been carried out against the poor and the  oppressed in the United States, especially in the form of the prison  industrial complex, meaning that prison construction, and the prison  industry, along with slave labor, have been fused together to create  what is regarded today as the fastest growing profitable sector in the  U.S. economy. First of all, who are the victims of the prison industrial  complex, which we have also heard pretty much during this round table  discussion? That is, there are two million people in U.S. prisons, in  federal, state and local prisons. They are expecting by the end of this  year for the prison population to skyrocket to 2.07 million prisoners.  That means that 25% of the world's incarcerated people are in the United  States, which is the highest percentage of any country in the world.

 There are tens of thousands of prisoners in the United States who  are illiterate, who are drug addicts, and who are also mentally  ill. In terms of women prisoners in the United States, they  constitute the fastest growing population of prisoners, mainly due to  the severity of drug sentencing, of non-violent drug convictions, along  with the elimination of welfare. Many of the women who are in prison  today are mothers, single mothers. A lot of women who are in prison have  their babies in prison, which we feel is a crime against humanity.

 You have in these prisons male guards who, on a daily, hourly  basis, sexually abuse and rape women prisoners. And they do this with  complete impunity. Just recently a number of women in New York jails  came forth to expose this situation, which is very brave of them to do,  because usually what happens is that it is the women who again become  the brunt of attacks by the guards, or they get longer sentences, or the  abuse continues to grow. But it was very courageous of these women to  come forth, because at least now, the masses in the United States know  that this is happening, especially in New York State.

 In the prisons you have a criminalization of a whole generation of  young people. In the prisons, especially private prisons, which is  really the main factor for this prison industrial complex today, the  youth are being targeted for incarceration. In fact, it's been quoted in  statistics that the so-called crime rate amongst young people has  decreased by 9.3%, but the incarceration of youth has increased by more  than 10%. So there's something wrong in terms of that correlation.

 Who's behind the growth of the prison industrial complex? It's mainly  Wall Street firms and banks that finance the construction of private  prisons in the United States. By the end of this year, 41 billion  dollars would have been spent in the building of private prisons in this  country. And that's mainly Shearson-Leason, American Express, and other  corporations that buy and sell stocks on Wall Street, that are behind  this new wave of sweatshops in the United States. The United States  corporations no longer have to close down factories in this country and  go to Mexico or Puerto Rico or Indonesia, or some other oppressed  country, in order to carry out slave labor. All they have to do is go to  the next state and build a prison, and have the prisoners work for  between 23 cents to a dollar or two dollars an hour, to make products  and goods that unionized workers would normally make.

 And we feel that this is a real threat to union organizing and to the  unions in the United States, because the impact of that is to drive down  the wages of all workers, and really to destroy the union movement in  the United States. So we feel very strongly that it is important for the  union movement to take up this issue of slave labor in these prisons,  and to organize prisoners into unions, because these are unemployed  workers who are forced, because of economic deprivation, to go into  prisons in the first place. You have telephone companies like IT&T and  Sprint that actually have profited off of prisoners in the United States  because in the prisons, the prisoners are forced to make collect calls  to their loved ones. And every time they have to make a call, these  telephone conglomerates charge three dollars per call. This creates  tremendous profits for the telephone conglomerates. They have put out  telephone books in terms of promoting this type of slave labor amongst  the various prison industries throughout the United States. We also  don't want to let the federal government off the hook in terms of its  role regarding prison growth in the United States.

 The federal government since 1996 has spent more money building  prisons than they have on building universities. So this tells you  what this government has in store for young people and for future  generations in this country. What they are saying is that we would  rather put young people into prison than to educate and provide jobs in  a healthy future for young people in the United States.

 In terms of drug sentencing in the United States, we talked about how  women are being driven more and more into the prisons because of the  severity of drug sentencing, but for black men, they are really the main  targets of the severe drug sentencing in the United States.

 In fact, Human Rights Watch, which is a progressive group that does many  studies in terms of social problems inside the United States, put out a  study last week stating that black men are 13 times more likely to be  sentenced to longer sentences than white men, based on drug convictions,  although white males constitute five times more of the drug dealers in  the United States.

 In Illinois, which has the most severe sentencing of black men  because of drug convictions, a black man is 57 times more likely to be  convicted of possession of drugs or drug dealing than white men. They  have a 90% rate of incarceration in Illinois along these lines. By 2006,  the federal prison population is expected to increase by 50%. That means  that at this particular time, there are 130,000 people in the federal  prisons in this country, and by 2006, that's going to jump to 200,000  people. And this is again due to the severe drug sentencing, the  elimination of parole at the federal level, and also the lack of drug  rehabilitation.

 Drug rehabilitation programs in the United States have been virtually  wiped out. So the so-called solution by the government, with support  from Wall Street firms and so forth, is to drive the poor, drive drug  addicts into prison. Because again, the mental institutions and  hospitals and drug rehab programs have been shut down. Why? Because they  don't make a profit.

 They don't make a profit for the capitalists in the United States. To  put this succinctly, in the United States, the prison industrial complex  is not about providing rehabilitation for those who have carried out  antisocial acts or any other types of crimes, it is really about  repression.

 And there is an economic basis for this repression, and that is  the capitalist system. This is a system, as we all know, that is  based on making profits at all costs, at the expense of providing  needs for human beings.

 Prisoners in the United States produce, in terms of the value of  goods, 1.1 billion dollars worth. So you can see that this is  something that the capitalists, they are just foaming at the mouth in  terms of making all of these profits, and they don't care how they do  it, as long as they can line their pockets with more and more money at  the expense of human beings. It is a really insidious situation going on  inside the United States. Mumia has spoken about this many, many times,  Shaka also. We feel that Mumia and Shaka and so many other political  prisoners in this country are really the face of this racist repression  that's going on inside of the prisons. Mumia is the face of the struggle  against police brutality in the United States. This is why we feel that  the United States government, along with the ruling class that props up  the U.S. government, they really want Mumia silenced, rather than his  death, because Mumia has refused to stop speaking out against injustice.  And even at the expense of his own individual situation.

 For example, when there was a strike going on last year or a couple of  years ago of ABC workers, in New York City, who were fighting for better  health benefits, and Mumia had the opportunity to go on a very prominent  national TV program called 20/20, with Sam Donaldson. These workers were  striking against ABC, he had the opportunity to go on national TV  amongst millions of people to tell his side of the story, and he refused  to cross the picket line. He is such an honorable person, and he is  always standing up for the rights of workers and poor people.

 And this is why we feel he is so important to our movement, and that we  have to continue to intensify the struggle, to win a new trial for  Mumia, because really, although we feel that he should be free, he  should have been freed, he should never have been convicted 18 years  ago, or even charged with the murder of this policeman, that for the  masses of people in the United States whose minds are so controlled by  the capitalist media, by ABC, CBS, NBC, who brainwash them on a daily  basis, in terms of demonizing prisoners inside the walls, that they are  criminals and we have to keep them shut up because they 're a threat to  society, this is what the masses in the United States are inundated  with, day in and day out. We have to say, this man needs a new trial,  this is the only way we're going to be able to free him, is through a  new trial. And people can understand that, that's a level that people  can understand, because if we bring out all of the suppressed evidence  around Mumia's case, in terms of what was explained by Mr. Weinglass and  others, this makes people think that, gee, this man didn't have a fair  trial, and doesn't he deserve, doesn't he have a right, doesn't anybody  have a right to a new trial? If there has been suppressed evidence, and  all of the political machinations that surround Mumia's case, once  people hear this, then they begin to question not only what happened to  Mumia, but what's happening with the legal system inside the United  States.

 Because ultimately, that's what we want people to think about, all of  the injustices that go on day in and day out in the United States,  because, I tell you, people really do not know, a lot of people do not  know. And so, ever since 1998, once the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court  refused Mumia's appeal for the second time, the Mumia movement decided  to strategize and push forth a program of saying that Mumia has a right  to a new trial, that that would be one of the main slogans of the Mumia  movement, as a way of broadening out the support for Mumia. And we want  to make every effort to do that. We've done it with the various  demonstrations, we had a magnificent rally at the theater at Madison  Square Garden, on May 7, where 6000 people came out, all of the speeches  Mumia has done at all of the different commencement graduation  exercises; this has really helped tremendously in terms of broadening  the support out and to help make Mumia's name a household name in the  United States. Randy Alonso: Thank you for your comments, Monica. You  said something which I think is very important, that Mumia has said,  that his voice cannot be silenced, and it is true.

And for the conclusion of our round table, we have a very moving  moment. Mumia was informed that this round table would take place  today, and he sent a message from prison to our round table and a  message to the people of Cuba.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: ¡Viva John Africa!
¡Viva Cuba libre! Viva la Revolución!

 Sisters and brothers of Cuba: Thanks for the invitation and the  opportunity to speak to you. I am called Mumia and I am a political  prisoner of the United States. This country speaks about democracy and  justice and liberty, but it is the Prison House of Nations; a place  where over two million men, women and juveniles are being caged in  American prisons and jails; a place of repression, racism, and bitter  class conflict. A place where police shoot unarmed black men, like  Amadou Diallo, by firing 41 shots, for the high crime of being black in  white America. Amadou Diallo didn't know it, but he was on Death Row! So  much for American justice.

 And what of Cubans here in America? I've met many of them in  Pennsylvania prisons who are doing time in U.S. jails, with no end  date, because they are Marielitos. No matter how much time a judge  sentenced them to, they will never be released from prison -- Cubans  under American justice.

 Over 3,000 men, women and juveniles wait for death on America's Death  Rows. Most with no lawyers, some with lawyers who slept during their  client's trial, others with cops who lied to concoct confessions, with  blacks routinely still removed from juries. American justice. Mis  hermanos y hermanas de Cuba! Gracias por esta oportunidad.

 The struggle for freedom continues here.  Venceremos! Ona Move! Long Live John Africa!  For America's Death Row, que dice Mumia Abu-Jamal

   Randy Alonso: It has been a privilege for our round table to have  heard this message from Mumia in prison, and also spoken in Spanish,  through a great effort, so that our people could listen to his message  directly. And I think this is the best way to conclude our round table,  which has analyzed the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other cases which are  proof of racism and segregation which unjustly condemn people in the  United States, and the racist system in the United States.

 I would also like to remind you that today, June 19, we commemorate 47  years since the murder of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and I would like  to conclude by reading the poem written by Ethel to her sons, shortly  before she was executed:

You shall know, my sons, shall know
Why we leave the song unsung,  
The book unread, the work undone  
To rest beneath the sod.

Mourn no more, my sons, no more  
Why the lies and smears were framed,  
The tears we shed, the hurt we bore  
To all shall be proclaimed.

Earth shall smile, my sons, shall smile  
And green above our resting place,  
The killing end, the world rejoice  
In brotherhood and peace.

Work and build, my sons, and build  
A monument to love and joy,  
To human worth, to faith we kept  
For you, my sons, for you.

For us, for Cuba, for the people of the United States, so that the  bells will no longer toll because of abuse, discrimation, and  injustice, we will keep up the battle. Thank you very much." JC