the following statement was distributed at protests against the IMF and World Bank on April 16 in Washington, DC - ed.
In December, over 30,000 protestors gathered in Seattle demonstrating in loud and diverse ways against the World Trade Organization - people from across the country, from many different kinds of organizations including labor, environmental, social justice, political and religious, were joined by people from all over the world. They stood united, despite the divisive tactics and heavy repression to silence this dissent. People will be coming to Washington DC, April 16th and 17th for Round 2! We salute the resisters of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and stand with you against the tides of repression to build even greater waves of resistance!
It was this message of resistance which greeted the new century - a movement becoming more vocal and spirited and not just around the issue of globalization, but in the struggle to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, in the fight to stop police brutality and the prison-industrial complex and the fight for immigrant rights. Today, organizations are discovering common ground with groups they have never worked with before - and becoming increasingly multi-generational and multi-ethnic. People are uniting in their different ways because they see the need and possibility for a different future!
R&R! builds and encourages many forms of resistance. We see that this spirit is needed to puncture the whole national agenda of repression and cruelty, poverty and punishment. Our mission is to build a climate, culture and community of resistance to defeat the whole reactionary program. We work to win fighters on one front into fighters on all fronts, where those under attack see the larger reactionary assault on the people as a whole and those who are not the immediate targets feel deeply that an injury to one is an injury to all. We all need to take on a common identity as resisters!
At just the time these protests will be in Washington, DC, the battle to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal is in the most critical time period of the 18 years Mumia has been on death row. In 1982, Mumia, an award winning radio journalist and outspoken critic of the Philly Police Department, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a white police officer. It was a sham trial based on a racially discriminatory jury selection; witnesses who were threatened and coerced into giving false testimony; and the denial of Mumia's right to represent himself. The prosecutor brought up Mumia's political activity and revolutionary beliefs to argue for the death penalty. The campaign to silence Mumia takes place as part of a national program to criminalize Black youth, increase police powers, lengthen prison terms, expand the death penalty, speed up executions, restrict appeals, and silence all dissenting voices. It's all one attack!
Mumia is a living link between the spirit of the 1960s and the generation coming up today. He is someone who has consistently questioned, exposed and resisted the reactionary status quo - he has never given up or lost faith in the people, even in the face of death. From death row, Mumia has found the ways to raise his voice, not mainly about his own case, but about the sweeping injustices of this system and the need for conscious resistance. Mumia's execution would send a chilling message throughout society and change the political climate for years to come. We must not allow this to happen! We fight for a different future! We must build a movement, community and culture of resistance that is broad enough to reach millions, diverse enough to include all and determined enough to put fear in the hearts of the mighty.
Stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Come to the hearings in Philly calling for a new trial!
Justice demands no less!
[posted 4/15/00]
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