war crimes
THE DEATH PENALTY: A WAR CRIME AGAINST THE POOR AND OPPRESSED
By Gloria Rubac, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
In 1992 when Clinton was running for president, he made a point of leaving the campaign trail to go back to Arkansas for an execution, sending a strong message to the American people that he was in full support of the death penalty. The victim was a mentally retarded man named Ricky Ray Rector, who told the guards taking him from his cell to the execution chamber that he was going to leave his dessert on the side of his bunk. "I’m going to eat it after my execution," he said.
Clinton has such callous disregard for people in this country that he was proud to preside over the execution of a man with the comprehension of a child—a man who was going the SAVE HIS DESSERT, A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE CAKE, FOR AFTER HIS EXECUTION! Sisters and brothers, the reason that the US government can bomb and destroy and sanction to death and commit war crimes against people around the world is because they do it every day here in the US against the working people and the poor, and particularly to the oppressed communities of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and Asians. Every day, every hour, every minute.
A political system that carries out criminal behavior here at home can certainly carry out war crimes abroad.
I am from Texas, a state that has executed 180 out of the 560 killed in the US since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, more people that any other state in the country. There are 460 in Texas and over 3600 in the US awaiting execution. I work with the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty which organizes against the death penalty and supports the men and women on death row in their struggle to be treated with dignity and respect instead of racism, brutality, degradation and physical and mental violence. If you remember nothing else that I say today, I want you to remember that the death penalty in this country is a war crime. The death penalty is racist.
The death penalty is used against the poor, the oppressed, the mentally ill, juveniles, foreign nationals, many who are innocent, and the mentally retarded. The death penalty is a violation of international laws and conventions and it is a crime against humanity. Every major human rights treaty expressly prohibits executing people for crimes committed before the age of 18. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child details the rights that all children should have. Who could oppose that? The US. It is one of only 2 countries that has not ratified it. The reason is simple. The convention says that children should not be executed!
There are more than 70 juvenile offenders on death rows across the US, some of whom were 16 years old at the time of crime. Over 25 of these 70 men reside on death row in Texas. And in the last few years, Texas politicians have tried to lower the age from 17 to as young as 11 years old. The US Supreme Court has ruled that the execution of children as young as 16 is not cruel and unusual punishment This is in direct contradiction to international law.
The UN Commission on Human Rights has passed several resolutions calling for an end to the death penalty. The US has always voted NO on these.
Under the 1963 Vienna Convention must be allowed to contact their embassies when arrested. There are 74 foreign nationals on death row in the US, dozens in Texas alone, and none were given the rights they are entitled to under the Vienna Convention. Recently Canadian government officials and attorneys met with Gov. Bush about the impending execution of a Canadian citizen named Stanley Faulder. Guess what Bush told the Canadians? Everybody gets a fair trial in Texas. My message to you is that if you come to Texas and commit a crime, expect to get the death penalty. Just as his Democratic predecessor, Gov. Ann Richards, Republican Gov. Geo W. Bush is setting records for executions. In the next 6-8 weeks, Bush will probably sit over his 100th execution. He’s on number 95 right now.
This is the son of a Bush that murdered so many Iraqi people. This is the "compassionate conservative" who hopes to be the next president of the United States. A few years ago a Chicago newspaper ran an editorial titled "There’s a Serial Killer On Loose In Texas—And It Is the State of Texas". This is even more true today. Bush is a serial killer. And it appears that his brother, Jeb, the governor of Florida, wants to follow in the family footsteps. A few years ago in Florida, the electric chair was used to kill Pedro Medina. It caught his head on fire and flames were shooting out of the top of the cap. After this gruesome murder, Florida was forced to halt executions until they could build a new chair. Last week they tried it out and Allen Davis was electrocuted. The chair worked so well that a hole appeared in Mr. Davis’s chest and blood was flowing out. Blood was coming from his head and he bled all over himself as he was being executed. Witnesses described it as horrible while prison officials said it was a nosebleed. Gov. Jeb Bush said that brutal murderess deserve to die and even as criticism mounted, he reaffirmed his support of the electric chair. Davis’ lawyers said his execution was the kind of savage spectacle forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. The UN Commission on Human Rights has passed several resolutions calling for an end to the Death Penalty. The US has voted NO on these.
Forty-two per cent of those on death row are Black, while Blacks are only 13 % of the US population. In a 1990 report, the US General Accounting Office determined that those who murdered whites, Black and white alike, were more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered Blacks. In interracial murders, nationwide only eight whites have been executed for murdering Blacks, while 188 Blacks have been executed for murdering whites. There are over 300 mentally retarded people on death row and 33 have been executed since 1976. 90% of those on death row today could not afford to hire an attorney.
In Houston the DA doesn’t usually try someone for capital murder, but just murder, if the family can afford to hire legal counsel. Many defendants meet their attorney the day before or the morning of their trial. Many of those on death row are mentally ill. Friends tell me of men screaming out loud all night long, men who smear their feces on the walls, men who mutilate themselves, men who sit and cry, men who never say a word. The are prisoners who need mental health care, not execution. I have to mention that in Texas the prison system is moving ALL men on death row to a new unit and housing them in cells with solid steel doors, not bars, in total isolation. The men go to their hour of recreation ALONE. They eat in their cells. They have no one to talk to. It is designed to isolate and depress and cause the men to drop their appeals. And after just 6 weeks it is already happening.
Last year Ted Koppel spent just one night in a super seg cell in Texas and said that it will drive men mad. Federal Judge William Wayne Justice ruled these cells unconstitutional. Please stop by the table for the Texas Coalition and pick up a flier that tells how you can help stop this isolated housing. In 1994 in Herrera v. Texas, the US Supreme Court ruled that it was okay to execute an innocent person as long as they got a fair trial. Statistics vary as to how many innocents have been executed but one thing is certain—hundreds of innocent people have been sentenced to death. Last fall at Northwestern University a conference took place on innocence and the death penalty and 35 of the 76 people released from death row in the US since 1976 were present. In Illinois they have released 12 innocent people and they have carried out 12 executions.
Just as in Yugoslavia where the US NATO troops violated so many international laws and committed crimes against humanity, it is easy to see where they have gotten their experience in this—right here at home. And unfortunately the death penalty is only one of so many crimes against the people of the United States.
Commission of Inquiry
c/o International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
http://www.iacenter.org
phone: 212 633-6646
fax: 212 633-2889
