Desprocesamiento de manifestantes contra Clinton

Buenos Aires, Argentina, a 4 de noviembre de1997. CEPRODH. A todos los organismos de Derechos Humanos, organizaciones gubernametales y ONGs, organizaciones estudiantiles, populares y obreras del mundo:

Transcribimos el siguiente petitorio para que sea firmado a la brevedad por la mayor cantidad de organizaciones y personalidades posibles. Creemos que esta tarea es muy importante, ya que los hechos demuestran una escalada en la política represiva del gobierno argentino. Es la primera vez que se detienen a tanta cantidad de gente participante de una movilización. Los posteriores hechos y los procesamientos judiciales no son menos preocupantes. Convocamos a la actitud solidaria de todos para impulsar esta campaña internacional. No solamente firmando, sino consiguiendo firmas de la declaración que aquí suscribimos, y luego enviárnosla por correo electrónico, fax o correo para que nosotros a su vez la mandemos al Ministerio del Interior y al Juzgado que atiende en la causa. Muy posiblemente, si conseguimos el dinero, una vez que tengamos sendas firmas nacionales e internacionales, publicaremos este petitorio en forma de solicitada en periódicos de Buenos Aires.

Aquí va el texto:

Este nuevo hecho represivo viene a sumarse a las más de 600 causas abiertas contra luchadores y organizaciones obreras, a la represión desatada contra los piqueteros y fogoneros en las localidades argentinas de Cutral Có, Jujuy, etc. , a las detenciones del paro nacional del 14 de agosto, a los casos de gatillo fácil como los de Walter Bulacio, Miguel Brú, o el reciente asesinado Sebastián Bordón, a los atentados a la casa de las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, y a los cientos de hechos represivos con los que se les responde a quienes se levantan contra la miseria, la explotación y la entrega, avasallando las más elementales libertades democráticas".

Hasta el dia 31 de octubre ya habían firmado esta declaración las siguientes personas y organizaciones en la Argentina:

Hebe de Bonafini (Presidente de la Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo), CORREPI (Coordinadora contra la Represión Policial e Institucional), CEPRODH (Centro de Profesionales por los Derechos Humanos), Eduardo Sartelli (Asociación Docentes Universitarios de Buenos Aires), Centro de Estudiantes de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, Dr. Luis Yanes (Decano de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UBA), Comités contra la Represión y la Impunidad, Partido de Trabajadores por el Socialismo (PTS), Corriente Nacional Patria Libre, Centro de Estudiantes de la Facultad de Psicología de la UBA, dirigentes estudiantiles de Franja Morada, MOVES, Juventud Socialista del MST, UJS/PO, En Clave Roja, Agrupación Venceremos.

Pueden enviarnos su firma, la que inmediatamente será remitida al Ministerio del Interior y al Juzgado que atiende en la causa.

Atentamente: CEPRODH

CNIAC - FEDEFAM. En América Latina y en los países del tercer mundo, la violación a los derechos humanos siempre ha generado inconformidad y protestas de la población que han sido reprimidas por dictaduras militares o civiles con la supresión de los derechos económicos, sociales y políticos.

 A diario nos enteramos de jóvenes asesinados por el "gatillo fácil" en Argentina, persecución, encarcelamientos injustos, tortura, asesinatos, desapariciones y masacres de ciudadanos mexicanos, también de matanzas de campesinos y colonos en favelas y de niños de la calle asesinados en Brasil, de asesinatos selectivos de dirigentes campesinos en Ecuador, Guatemala y El Salvador, de millones de desplazados por razones económicas y políticas, así como de las condiciones de trabajo inhumanas de que son objeto las mujeres en las maquiladoras de México, Honduras y El Salvador y de la muerte de cientos de miles de infantes por enfermedades prevenibles, curables y por desnutrición y hambre en el continente y el mundo.

 En Colombia los ingresos de los ricos son 46 veces más altos que los de los pobres y 53% de la población se encuentra subempleada, realidad que es igual o peor en los demás países latinoamericanos.

 Esto es resultado de la política neoliberal que en el continente y el mundo ha incrementado la violación de los derechos humanos, profundizado la pobreza, miseria y atraso de los trabajadores, cuyas consecuencias son la mortandad infantil, desempleo, delincuencia común, prostitución, drogadicción, alcoholismo y peores servicios de salud, vivienda y educación así como la negación de la tierra, alimentación, trabajo y justicia para la mayoría de la población.

 Las mujeres son víctimas de ello: "nos resulta impresionante la catástrofe que significa la feminización de la pobreza" dice el padre Pérez Aguirre, 43 millones de mujeres viven en la pobreza absoluta sólo en América Latina y el Caribe, región donde su trabajo proporciona el 50% de los alimentos y donde el 30% es cabeza de familia y madres solteras.

 Las condiciones mencionadas se agravan con la deuda externa del continente, que asciende a $611 mil millones de dólares, la cual sigue subiendo, a pesar de haber pagado $648 mil millones de dólares hasta 1996.

 Al convocar su XIV Congreso Latinoamericano, en torno a los derechos socioeconómicos y la impunidad con que son violados, FEDEFAM busca estimular el debate del tema y contribuir a la divulgación y análisis de diversas situaciones típicas de violación a los derechos humanos, que afectan a la mayor parte de los países de América Latina y el Caribe y contribuir así para que se interiorice entre la sociedad y la opinión pública, la integridad de los derechos políticos, sociales, económicos y culturales.

Consideramos los hechos descritos nos exigen redoblar esfuerzos en la organización social y humanitaria, para seguir luchando por su erradicación.

 Los conflictos desencadenados por la exclusión neoliberal que ha ocasionado la marginalidad económica, social y política de la población, contienen demandas de gran intensidad que han generado importantes movilizaciones en América Latina con el objetivo de encontrar una solución a esta situación de injusticia.

 Las organizaciones sociales, con la participación de campesinos, indígenas, obreros, colonos, amas de casa, trabajadores sociales, periodistas, médicos, geólogos, educadores y estudiantes, enriquecen la defensa de los derechos civiles y políticos, la ayuda comunitaria, educación, investigación, comunicación social y la ayuda de emergencia para lograr la vigencia plena de los derechos humanos para todos los ciudadanos.

 Gran parte del problema es que los derechos económicos, políticos y sociales son violados impunemente por los gobiernos, por ello, una alternativa, es ampliar y no restringir la democracia. Democracia no sólo como sistema político, sino como forma de vida y como sistema económico, social y cultural en donde el estado sea garante de la integridad física y psicológica de los ciudadanos y de los recursos que exige la salud, la vivienda, la educación, la alimentación y la justicia.

Invitamos a la población en su conjunto, a la iglesia, a los organismos de derechos humanos no gubernamentales, personalidades democráticas y periodistas a compartir este espacio de análisis y propuestas sobre el tema de los derechos socioeconómicos y su impunidad en América Latina.

Atentamente: COMITE NACIONAL INDEPENDIENTE PRO-DEFENSA DE PRESOS, PERSEGUIDOS, DETENIDOS - DESAPARECIDOS Y EXILIADOS POLÍTICOS. Miembro de la Federación Latinoamericana de Asociaciones de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos FEDEFAM, Organismo no Gubernamental con Estatus Consultivo II ante el Consejo Económico y Social de Naciones Unidas (ONU). CNIAC - FEDEFAM

SODEPAZ. The United States government is in the final stages of the buildup for a new war in the Persian Gulf. The Pentagon has deployed a large portion of its military machinery, including 300 advanced warplanes, ready to launch bombing raids on Iraq on a few hours' notice.

This attack will go far beyond previous confrontations. This time the Pentagon, with the full backing of Congress and the media, is preparing to launch a sustained air attack on densely populated areas.

There is also open talk to "bring down Saddam Hussein" and suggestions that US aims can be realized only through the occupation of Iraq by American troops.

In advance of the war, the media is seeking to inure American public opinion to a massive loss of life. One network news declared that Americans should expect "hundreds of thousands" of Iraqi casualties. Columnists warn that "casualties [are] to be expected" and have suggested that Iraqi resistance to a US attack would "invite a nuclear response."

Washington's policy in the Persian Gulf is to accuse its prospective victim of precisely the crime which the Pentagon is itself organizing: the use of weapons of mass destruction against a virtually defenseless population. It should not be forgotten that for all the media hysteria about Saddam Hussein, the United States remains the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons in war.

The government is counting on a politically disoriented and misinformed population to passively accept a new war. It relies upon a corrupt, corporate-controlled media to serve as a cheer leaders for the American military. Nowhere in the press or on the airwaves has there been an attempt to critically examine US allegations against Iraq or probe the real interests underlying the US war buildup.

Within official political circles there is even less critical thought. Not a single significant figure from either party has so much as questioned US policy, much less demanded a Congressional debate and the constitutionally- mandated vote on a declaration of war. While engaged in in incessant bickering over Clinton's personal morality, the Democrats and Republicans are united.on the question of war against Iraq.

"Weapons of Mass Destruction"

The killings are to be carried out in the name of the American people and justified by the need to protect Americans from "weapons of mass destruction." This phrase, endlessly repeated, is being used to preempt any serious debate and numb public opinion.

Since 1990 the US has employed the alleged threat of Iraqi weapons to maintain an embargo which has crippled Iraq economically and plunged the vast majority of its population into conditions of hunger, disease and misery. Under a resolution which Washington pushed through the United Nations, these sanctions cannot be lifted until it is proven that Iraq no longer possesses either weapons of mass destruction or the means to produce them.

UNSCOM, the UN agency charged with implementing this resolution, has been roaming the country for seven and a half years without producing a shred of evidence that Iraq is producing or concealing such weapons. UNSCOM functions without any timetable, free to extend its inspections, as well as the embargo, indefinitely. No matter what Iraq does to comply, there are new demands, provocations and threats of military intervention.

The essence of the UNSCOM mission is to demand that Iraq prove something which can never be proven. The production of biological and chemical weapons requires neither substantial resources nor advanced technology. According to one arms expert, substantial biological weapons materials can be produced in a 10-by-15 foot room with little more than a beer fermenter. How can one prove that such a facility does not exist in a country of 22 million people with a territory larger than the state of California?

One of the principal charges floated by US officials is that Iraq has developed the capacity to manufacture "deadly VX gas." Yet the components and technology used in making this gas are employed in the manufacture of common pesticides used in agriculture the world over.

The American people should be aware of how easily "weapons of mass destruction" can be secretly manufactured. Using little more than fuel and fertilizer, Timothy McVeigh was able to manufacture such a device, killing 168 people at the Oklahoma City federal building. Similarly, a Japanese Buddhist cult was able to manufacture and deploy a deadly gas in the Tokyo subway system.

If Washington is setting out to destroy the capacity to develop such weapons everywhere in the world (except of course, for the US), no country is safe from American bombs.

Washington claims that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction pose a clear and present danger. If this is true, why doesn't the rest of the world feel threatened as well? Those countries closest to Iraq's borders should presumably feel the greatest danger of all. Yet all of them, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which supported the last Gulf war, oppose US intervention. Even Iran, which did suffer Iraqi chemical weapons attacks in the Iran-Iraq war, is against an American attack.

Can all of these governments be indifferent to an imminent threat of annihilation by Iraqi chemical and biological arms? Or do they perhaps understand that the American charges are fabricated and aimed at masking Washington's real objectives?

How the US Started the Last war

The regime of Saddam Hussein functioned throughout the 1980s as a firm US ally. Washington worked to build up the regime militarily as a counterweight to the Iranian revolution. UN inspectors have exhaustive documentation on Iraq's previous chemical and biological weapons programs precisely because the equipment and materials for the production of these weapons were supplied largely by US firms acting under licenses supplied by the Reagan and Bush administrations. Washington encouraged the production of these weapons for use against both Iran and Iraq's own Kurdish population.

In the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war and with new opportunities opening up as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, Washington no longer needed Saddam Hussein's services. It prepared its intervention in the Gulf by luring Saddam Hussein into a trap.

In July 1990 Hussein told the US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, of his intentions to seek a military solution to increasing tensions with neighboring Kuwait. Glaspie deliberately led Hussein to believe that an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would not be opposed by the US.

Washington then proceeded to implement its longstanding strategic goal of establishing a permanent military grip over the strategic and oil-rich Persian Gulf region. It squelched every attempt at reaching a peaceful, negotiated solution to the crisis. In a one-sided and brief war it destroyed Iraq's industrial infrastructure and military capacity while leaving Saddam Hussein's regime intact. In the aftermath of the war it provided this regime with tacit support for its suppression of rebellions by the Shiite population in the south and the Kurds in the north.

The US achieved its beachhead in the Gulf, maintaining a permanent military presence and large military stockpiles. But the regimes of the region as well as America's economic rivals in Europe have increasingly chafed at the domination which Washington achieved through the first Gulf war. With the Iraqi military no longer posing a credible threat, the justification for the US presence in the region is becoming increasingly tenuous. Thus, the need for a new war.

What are the aims of the war?

US policy in the Persian Gulf, as throughout the world, is determined by its own strategic and economic interests. With military control over the Gulf, the US maintains a chokehold over the oil supplies upon which its principal economic rivals in Europe and Japan depend.

Moreover, from a geopolitical standpoint, the Gulf region provides the US with a base of operations from which it can project its power into the whole of the Caucasus and South Central Asia. Iraq lies just a few hundred miles from the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea basin, where US conglomerates have been staking their claim.

There are other motivating factors. Seven years is a long time for the United States not to be involved in a war somewhere on the planet. A defining feature of US imperialism is its incessant drive to settle matters by military intervention. Not a decade has gone by since the Second World War in which America has not launched one or more wars. In the 1950s, it was Korea; in the 1960s and 70s, Vietnam. In the 1980s, US forces intervened in Lebanon, Panama, Libya and Grenada, while Washington sponsored covert wars in Central America and Africa. In the beginning of the 1990s there was the war in the Persian Gulf.

The needs of the military-industrial complex enter into the equation. New weapons systems must be tested and officers and enlisted men trained in combat. The type of massive military apparatus which exists in the US cannot be maintained indefinitely without fighting a war somewhere. Perhaps most decisive in US calculations is the fear of a new economic slump and the social instability that rising unemployment and falling incomes will produce at home. War provides a useful diversion. The army can absorb some of the jobless as cannon fodder and the spectacle of carnage abroad serves to distract the population from deprivation at home.

The Crime of the Century

Although it is said that Saddam Hussein heads a ruthless government which has crushed the aspirations of the Iraqi people, it must be pointed out, he was supported in this endeavor by Washington.

Despite its repeated invocation of "human rights," Washington has never evaluated regimes according to how they treat their own people. It formulates its international relations on the basis of the profit interests of US big business.

The policy which the US has pursued toward Iraq over the past seven and a half years constitutes one of the great crimes of this century. A country which had attained a relatively high level of economic development has been reduced in the space of a few short years to barbaric conditions. It is estimated that as many as a million and a half people_at least half of them children_have died as a result of hunger and disease caused by the war's destruction and the subsequent embargo. Infant mortality rates have increased ten-fold.

A report issued by the World Health Organization on January 26 warned of the catastrophic impact of the embargo on the health conditions in Iraq: "The level of care has fallen seriously and many illnesses have reappeared because of the continuous lack of medicines since the implementation of the embargo_ Illnesses such as tuberculosis, malaria and cholera have become commonplace in the past few years because of malnutrition, dirty water and a lack of medicine.

" The drive to war in the Persian Gulf demonstrates once again how decisions are orchestrated behind the backs of the American people. The great masses of working people are reduced to spectators as the Democratic and Republican politicians carry out policies which have the most dire consequences. Denied access to information, lied to and manipulated by the media, the American working people are disenfranchised by the existing political system.

Alianza Nacional Cubano-Americana (ANCA) PO Box 15753 Rio Rancho, NM 87174 t/f (505) 994-0863

THE GLOBALIZATION OF SOLIDARITY

Pastors for Peace: http://www.ifconews.org
ANCA Internacional: http://chebucto.ns.ca/CommunitySupport/NSCUBA/Patria/
NSCUBA, Canada: http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/CommunitySupport/NSCUBA/contigo
INFOMED, USA: http://www.igc.apc.org/cubasoli/
Solidaridad para el Desarrollo y la Paz (SODEPAZ): http://www.nodo50.ix.apc.org/sodepaz, Madrid (Spain). E-Mail: sodepaz@nodo50.ix.apc.org, marco.sodepazm@cam.org.

In the 1960s, the FBI established a covert operation called COINTELPRO. The stated purpose of COINTELPRO was to neutralize progressive movements developing across the country at that point, particularly movements by colonized peoples for community self-determination. The FBI considered these movements to be threats to "national security". The Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, the Chicano/Mexicano movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement were primary targets of COINTELPRO.

To achieve the objective of neutralizing these movements, the FBI utilized a combination of tactics: political assassinations, e.g. Fred Hampton and Mark Clark; frame-ups and incarcerations, e.g. Leonard Peltier and Geronimo Pratt; the dissemination of misinformation within movements via FBI plants in order to foster divisions; and the dissemination of misinformation to the larger public via media manipulation in order to discredit progressive movements. To implement COINTELPRO, the FBI enlisted the cooperation of local law enforcement officials and right-wing interest groups, creating a nexus of federal and local forces.

In the 1970s, a federal-level investigation exposed COINTELPRO to the larger public and allegedly resulted in the termination of the covert program. Reforms were enacted that restricted the powers of the FBI. However, these reforms were soon dismantled by the Reagan Administration and evidence accumulated during the 1980s that COINTELPRO was alive and well. Political prisoners- men and women who were targeted for incarceration by COINTELPRO- were subjected to long-term, arbitrary confinement within the new "supermax" prisons, such as the Marion and Lexington Control Units, where they were subjected to physical and psychological torture. Moreover, progressive organizations such as the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) experienced surveillance and disruptions of their activities by the FBI.

COINTELPRO successful in repressing the wave of movements that developed during the 1960s for self-determination. By the late 1970s, the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement- to cite a few examples- were effectively destabilized by government repression. However, some movements survived and continued to grow.

One of these movements was the Puerto Rican independence movement in Chicago. Over the past 25 years, Puerto Rican independence activists in Chicago have established the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC)- a strong, grassroots infrastructure of community organizations, including the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos alternative high school, the Family Learning Center for young mothers, the Consuelo Lee Corretjer child care center, the Vida SIDA AIDS prevention project, a community garden, and the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos community museum. PRCC activists have also joined forces with other community activists to develop a thriving corridor of local, Puerto Rican owned businesses- Paseo Boricua.

Under the umbrella of the PRCC, this infrastructure has engaged local Puerto Ricans in making their own history and meeting their own needs, while promoting national, anti-colonial consciousness. Moreover, this infrastructure has allowed independence activists to organize broad support from the community for other independence activists who are victims of government repression, i.e. men and women who have spent more than 15 years in prison on fraudulent charges. The FBI refers to these activists as the FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional) "terrorists".

In view of the successful organizing by Chicago-based Puerto Rican independence activists, the FBI has targeted the PRCC from 1973 through the present for COINTELPRO destabilization. The FBI has maintained intensive surveillance of PRCC activists and sought to disrupt the PRCC's work through agent provocateur activity. The FBI has even offered to pay former students of the PRCC's alternative high school to wear wire-taps and return to school. In addition, the FBI consistently attempted to discredit the work of the PRCC by disseminating to the public the misinformation that the PRCC is essentially a "terrorist" operation run by the FALN.

In 1983, the FBI raided the building of the PRCC's alternative high school, destroying much of the school's property, under the guise that the FBI was searching for evidence that would substantiate the alleged link between the PRCC and the FALN. The FBI failed to find any evidence and later issued an official apology. Unfortunately, the apology was insincere.

In 1985, the alternative high school was given an "Excellence in Education" award by the Council on American Private Education (CAPE), but the award was soon withdrawn after CBS mysteriously did an "expose" that the school was an alleged recruitment base for the FALN. The FBI continues to perpetrate the FALN myth- despite the fact that that there has been no concrete evidence of the FALN's existence for nearly two decades now- as a smokescreen for its efforts to destabilize the PRCC. Similarly, the FBI utilized the threat of a Soviet Communist conspiracy to justify its all-out assault on the civil rights movement during the 1960s.

The Current COINTELPRO Attack on the PRCC: the Chapter One Scandal and the Dec. 10, 1992 Bombing:

On February 3, 1997, the Chicago Sun Times ran a front-page attack on the PRCC, alleging that its activists had infiltrated Clemente Public High School and illegally utilized Chapter One funds to promote support for "FALN terrorists". Around the same time period, the Chicago Tribune also ran a similar article that undermined the credibility of the PRCC. In the aftermath of the media blitz, Edgar Lopez appointed a legislative committee to investigate the alleged misuse of Chapter One funds. Lopez's committee proceeded to subpoena various activists for information.

During this same period, the local Puerto Rican community was being flooded by a well-funded publication-- "El Pito"-- the central goal of which was to discredit the PRCC through personal and politic ander. Dennis Perez, a real estate developer in Chicago's Puerto Rican community and Gloria Chevere, a lawyer-- both militant proponents of Puerto Rican statehood-- were some of the key people behind the publication of "El Pito".

Then, soon after these developments, the FBI began issuing subpoenas to PRCC activists in reference to a Dec. 10, 1992 bombing in Chicago that the FBI was attempting to link to the PRCC. Parallel to the FBI's investigation, the Illinois State Police was also conducting an investigation into the Chapter One "scandal".

The net result of these three developments within the last year is to destabilize and discredit the work of the PRCC. Though on the surface, they would seem to be disconnected incidents, in actuality they are bound together by a single person: Rafael Marrero. Significantly, during the early 1990s, Marrero used to work for the PRCC, but eventually clashed with veteran PRCC activists for his ultra-left postures and divisive conduct. Research has revealed that Marrero displayed the same conduct while working with the independence movement in Puerto Rico before relocating to Chicago. After leaving the PRCC, Marrero soon abandoned his alleged commitment to Puerto Rican independence and began to wage war on his former "comrades" at the PRCC. Marrero claimed to be an expert source of information on the PRCC. What are the facts behind Marrero's accusations and the recent developments?

Fact:

Marrero was the main source of information that the media utilized in their Chapter One scandal expose. Despite Marrero's allegations, there has been no concrete evidence presented to the public that Chapter One funds were misused. In fact, a financial audit conducted by the firm Arthur Anderson found no wrong-doing in reference to the use of Chapter One funds, although it did uncover wrong-doing in reference to administrative management at Clemente High School. Despite all of the subpoenas it issued and the information it collected, Lopez's investigative committee has been silent for appro mately a year until recently when Lopez announced that the committee would hold hearings on the use of Chapter One funds at Clemente. Conveniently, the hearings are scheduled for March 3-4, approximately two weeks before the legislative elections in which Lopez is seeking re-election.

Fact:

What the media did not report when they extensively quoted Marrero for their Chapter One story is that six days prior to the story's release, Marrero was on a mission for the FBI; he was wire-tapped while he met with former DePaul professor Jose Solis in Puerto Rico who Marrero was attempting to entrap for the Dec. 10, 1992 bombing. In other words, the media's main information source on the PRCC was someone actively working with an agency that has a long track record of attempting to destabilize the PRCC and other progressive movements.

Fact:

Marrero is also the main "witness" to the FBI on the Dec. 10, 1992 bombing. Marrero claims that he personally organized and carried out the bombing with Solis and several others, but that Jose Lopez, the executive director of the PRCC, was the "intellectual architect" of the bombing. At the time the bombing occurred, Jose Lopez condemned the act before a human rights rally as being the act of an "agent provocateur".

Fact:

Marrero is the central force behind "El Pito". In fact, the most recent issue of "El Pito" highlights a photograph of Marrero holding up an FBI badge in order to provoke and ridicule PRCC activists.

In view of the FBI's extensive history of attempting to crush movements by colonized peoples for self-determination in general and the Chicago-based Puerto Rican independence movement in particular, it is clear that this latest round of attacks and the work of Marrero are current manifestations of COINTELPRO.

The FBI's involvement and manipulation of local forces-- from local politicians such as Lopez-- appears to have reached a new level of sophistication. Is the FBI involved in the decision to hold the hearings on the Chapter One scandal a mere several weeks pr re-election? As these questions hang over the heads of concerned people, the FBI intensifies its surveillance of PRCC activists. As recently as last week, a female FBI agent attempted to solicit information from a PRCC activist by falsely representing herself as a relative of one of the activist's friends. It is clear that the FBI is attempting to link the Chapter One scandal to the Dec. 10, 1992 bombing as part of a an alleged "FALN conspiracy" in order to deal a death blow to the PRCC.

It is the duty of progressive people to stand up with PRCC activists to defend the integrity of the PRCCís work in this critical hour in which the survival of the PRCC is jeopardized.

What You Can Do:

Come to a Press Conference and Protest Against the FBI Attack on the PRCC! Feb. 13, 9 AM, the Federal Plaza at 219 S. Dearborn.

Get Involved with the Friends of the PRCC and Help Build a Defense Fund for the PRCC! Contact ph:773-342-8022 for Information. Marcos Vilar Prpowpp@aol.com