|
|
TO PAGE 1
CLICK HERE TO PLAY & DOWNLOAD COMREV MUSIC -3mb
u.$. DAMAGES TO KOREA,BLACK & NATIVE LIBERATION
u.$. DAMAGES TO PALESTINE
JEWISH SETTLER BEATS CHILD TO DEATH AS NETANYAHU APPROVES SETTLEMENT EXPANSION
28 October, 1996
LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment PO Box 20873 Jerusalem, via Israel Tel: (972) (2) 5812364/5824559 Fax: (972) (2) 5811072 email: lawe@netvision.net.il
On Sunday 27 October, a Jewish settler from the Betar settlement near Husan village, Bethlehem, beat a Palestinian child to death. The eleven year old child, Hilmeh Salim Hilmeh Shushah was playing with some of his relatives near his parents' house. The house adjoins a settler bypass road linking the Betar settlement with Road 60.
According to witnesses at the scene, at 2:30 p.m. a blue jeep belonging to the head of the settlement security stopped near the children. A settler known as "Nahum", the head of the settlement's security, got out of the jeep. With his rifle butt, the settler beat Hilmeh all over his body and his head. After Hilmeh fell unconscious, the settler carried the him to a nearby Israeli military camp. Hilmeh was brain dead by this time. Afterwards the boy was transferred to Hadassah hospital and was pronounced dead. Nahum was arrested by Israeli police.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the approval of the sale of 3000 newly-constructed apartments located in settlements throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Some of these apartments are located in the Betar settlement where the settler who murdered the Palestinian boy resides. These apartments were built under the Rabin/Peres administrations but were kept off the market by the Labor government during the Oslo negotiations. The Netanyahu government announced that the sale of these apartments will bring in necessary revenue for the budget deficit.
LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment looks upon this murder with grave concern. The beating of a child in cold blood is inhumane and inexcusable and calls for an immediate investigation and charges brought against "Nahum". At the same time, LAWE holds the Netanyahu government responsible for this act as it continues to support the Jewish settlers militarily, financially and morally in their vigilante and colonialist acts in the West Bank.
LAWE calls on the international community to protest this beating and to demand a freeze of all settlement expansion, construction, and sales of apartments. With each new apartment enters another settler family of four or more, armed and ideologically opposed to ending the Israeli military occupation. LAWE believes that Netanyahu's policies, like his announcement yesterday, only increase the tensions and hostilities in the area and can lead to further violence and suffering. LAWE calls on all those interested in preventing further horrid acts and opposed to the expansion of the settlements to send faxes to your governments and to the following: Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, fax: 972-2-637891 YESHA Settlers Council, Foreign Desk, fax: 972-2- 5814072 ________________________________________________ LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAWE is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.
PALESTINIAN BOY BEATEN BY SETTLER WAS SLATED TO DONATE BONE MARROW TO DYING SISTER October 29, 1996
LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment PO Box 20873 Jerusalem, via Israel Tel: (972) (2) 5812364/5824559 Fax: (972) (2) 5811072 email: lawe@netvision.net.il
In a further tragic development, Hilmeh Shusha, the eleven-year old boy who was beaten to death by a Jewish settler, was scheduled to donate bone marrow to his two-year old sister , Suha, dying of Leukemia. Hilmeh was the only suitable donor found by the family and with his death, the family is without any means to save the younger daughter.
On Sunday, October 27, a Jewish settler beat Hilmeh to death with his rifle butt as Hilmeh was walking home from school. Contrary to news reports, witnesses to the incident reported that no rock-throwing had occurred. They stated that Hilmeh and two other children were walking along the bypass road which was empty of traffic. Without warning, a settler's jeep sped by and then stopped in front of the children. A settler, reportedly the chief of security at the Efrat settlement, got out of the jeep and beat Hilmeh on his head and body. Witnesses report that Hilmeh remained on the ground bleeding for a half and hour before the army took him to the hospital. Under the Oslo accords this road is under the security jurisdiction of the Israeli military forces.
Yesterday, the autopsy report from Abu Kabir -the Israeli coroner center - concluded that Hilmeh died from internal cranial bleeding. The report stated that Hilmeh sustained a blunt trauma to the side of his neck which in turn caused internal bleeding in his head.
Hilmeh's mother was with Suha at the hospital when Hilmeh was brought in brain-dead from the beating. Hilmeh was buried this morning in Husan village. _______________________________________________ LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAWE is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.
Press Release 12 November 1997
ISRAELI SOLDIERS SHOOT NINE YEAR OLD BOY IN BETHLEHEM On 11 November, a nine year old boy was shot in the head, apparently by live ammunition, by an Israeli soldier during clashes at Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. A ceremony was taking place at the Tomb marking the completion of the walls and guard towers which now surround the Tomb and restrict the main road into Bethlehem. Israeli Defense Minister Mordechai was present. According to eye-witnesses, several dozen children and youth came from the nearby Aida refugee camp and began throwing stones and burning tires. The stones did not endanger nor come close to the Israelis or to the soldiers. Three soldiers went to stop the children, and detained several. One soldier, from a distance of 15 meters, crouched and opened fire on the group, hitting Ali Jawarish, 9, in the head. The eye-witness stated that none of the soldiers went to help the child, who was left lying on the road bleeding profusely. Crowds of ultra-orthodox religious Jews continued praying during the clashes, and according to the witness some watched the shooting from behind barbed wire. The boy was finally taken to Bethlehem hospital, transferred to Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem and then, because of faulty equipment, had to be evacuated to Ramallah hospital, where he remains in critical condition. According to the Israeli Army Radio News, Israeli army officers claimed that the bullet was a rubber-coated metal bullet, but Ramallah hospital doctors who treated the child said that the child had been shot with live ammunition. LAW condemns in the strongest possible terms the excessive use of lethal force by Israeli soldiers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Fifteen meters is not within the acceptable “non-lethal” range if the soldier was firing rubber-coated metal bullets. These bullets cause serious injury and death, particularly if the targets are children. If in fact the soldiers were indeed using live ammunition, this constitutes the most serious breach of internationally accepted standards of the use of force since the uprising last September, in which over 80 Palestinians were killed by live ammunition and by the rubber-coated metal bullets. This tragic incident underlines the essential flaws of the current status quo. Heavily guarded Jewish enclaves in Palestinian populated areas, such as Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, are the source of constant confrontation between Israeli soldiers and the local Palestinian population, adding to the already tense and volatile situation in the West Bank. The illegal presence of the Jewish settlers, and the Israeli soldiers used to protect them, continue to destabilize the region and results in abuses of power like the shooting of this child. LAW calls for an immediate, full inquiry into the shooting, and for those responsible to be brought to justice. LAW - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAW is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.
u.$. DAMAGES TO KOREA,BLACK & NATIVE LIBERATION
Korea
Korean Central News Agency Items
Over 190 Espionage flights in One Month
BLACK
Sinister Scenarios Behind the Media Lies About Mumia
Mumia 3-24-00 Reply to State HP Response
1,200 Black GI's Slaughtered by U.$. Military in Mississippi During WW2
The Tulsa Massacre of 1921
NATIVE
U.S. CRIMES IN THE KOREAN WAR
THE MASSACRE AT NO GUN RI
“The American soldiers played with our lives like boys playing with flies.”
Chun Choon Ja, who was 12 in 1950 when she witnessed the No Gun Ri massacre
“We just annihilated them.” Norman Tinkler, former machine gunner; U.S. Army
On July 25, 1950, U.S. soldiers of the First Cavalry division rampaged through the villages of Korea’s mountainous Yong- dong county—ordering the villagers to leave their homes. After only a month of war, the U.S. forces were being badly beaten and driven back by fighters of the Korean People’s Army, who were advanc- ing southward from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea based in northern Korea. The First Cavalry troops had just arrived from Japan in those last days of July, but they were already falling apart in panic. On July 26, about 600 men of the First Cavalry dug in near the town called No Gun Ri. A column with hundreds of Korean villagers approached the U.S. lines along a dirt road. They were overwhelmingly women, older men and children dressed in the traditional white clothes of Korean farmers. U.S. troops ordered the people to leave the road and gather on the nearby railroad tracks. The U.S. command called in an air strike that strafed the people—killing 100. The U.S. troops ordered the survivors underneath a bridge, into a tunnel about 80 feet long and 30 feet high. The U.S. com- mander consulted with his superiors and moved his machine guns into position. As night fell, he ordered his machine gunners to open fire. For three days and nights, the people were pinned down in that tunnel. Hundreds died. People dragged the bodies of the dead around them as protection. U.S. riflemen killed people as they crawled out to escape or find drinking water. One sur- vivor, Chung Koo-ho, said many women protected their children with their bodies. Her own mother died on the second day. Suddenly, on July 29, the U.S. troops disappeared-fleeing before the advancing Korean People’s Army. Three weeks later, the revolutionaiy Korean paper Cho Sun In Mm Bc reported that troops of the People’s Anny had discovered “about 400 bodies of old and young people and children.” This war crime was part of the unjust war the U.S. waged from 1950 to 1953 to con- quer Korea and to threaten the newly vic- torious Maoist revolution in China. Back and forth across the Korean peninsula, the U.S. forces and their UN allies fought the Korean People’s Army and volunteers from the Chinese People’s Liberation Anny. The war ended witha major and historic setback for the U.S.-which had been proclaiming itself the atomic superpower of the world.
A Half Century of Coverup and Suppression
For almost 50 years, not a word has been said about this war crime in the U.S. press or history books. For decades after the war, survivors of the massacre lived under the military dictatorship that the U.S. imposed on southern Korea. In the 1990s, 30 deter- mined survivors and family members publicly accused the U.S. Anny’s First Cavalry Division. They filed a petition with the South Korean “Government Compen- sation Committee.” The U.S. military authorities answered that there was no evidence that the First Cavalry was in the area, or that they had ever shot at civilians. The petitioners succeeded in getting parts oftheirstory told in the media On September 30, the story broke in the U.S. when the Associated Press released a report documenting the massacre—including eye- witness reports of 12 U.S. war veterans who were there.
___________________________________________________________________
SECRET
Headquarters 25th Inf Div Sangju, Korea
27 July 1950
MEMO TO:
Commanding Officers, All Regimental Combat Teams AXL Staff Sections,
This Headquarters
ALL Civilians seen in this area are to be considered as Enemy and
action taken accordingly.
_________________________________________________________________
U.S. National Archives via Associated Press
The actual document from the U.S. command ordering troops to shoot
at Korean civilians in the war zone.
------------------ (See issue for picture.)
Chun Choon Ja at the bridge where she and other refugees came under
attack from U.S. troops in 1950.
-------------------
One former U.S. soldier, Eugene Hessel- man, recalled his Captain saying:
“The hell with all those people. Let’s get rid of all of them.”
Retired Colonel Robert M. Carroll, who was a 25-year-old lieutenant at No Gun Ri, recalled his riflemen opening fire on the refugees: “This is right after we got orders that nobody comes through, civilian, military, nobody.” After hearing of the AP’s findings, Pen- tagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the U.S. military stood by its earlier state- ment—that its researchers had no evidence of any massacre of Korean civilians.
A Hidden Story of the American Way of War
By denying the massacre at No Gun Ri, the Pentagon is trying to hide the truth of its brutal methods during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. The No Gun Ri massacre was, in fact, part of a campaign of genocide launched by the U.S. military. As U.S. forces were being routed in the opening campaigns of the Korean war, the U.S. command ordered soldiers to treat any Korean person in the war zone as an enemy—to shoot them down. Why was the U.S. targeting the Korean people themselves? Because the active sup- port of the Korean people was a key reason the revolutionary armies were defeating the U.S. forces. Millions of Korean people were determined to liberate their country from foreign occupiers. In the Nation magazine (Oct. 25), his- torian Bruce Cumings reports that, by the end of World War 2, the rural people of Yongdong country had built a powerful movement against the Japanese occupiers. When Japanese imperialism collapsed in August 1945, a Yongdong County People’s Committee seized power from the Japan- ese. Similar uprisings took place in many parts of the country. However, U.S. armed forces quickly moved to occupy southern Korea. They sent in “civil affairs teams” to take power away from the local people in areas like Yongdong. The U.S. occupiers quickly re- armed the hated Korean traitors who had worked as colonial cops for the Japanese. Over the next three years, people in places like Yongdong started to wage guerrilla war against these new colonial masters. The pro-U.S. police hunted down communist activists in Yongdong and executed them. In late June 1950, war broke out between the U.S. and the Democratic People’s Re- public of Korea which had been formed in the liberated northern part of the country. As battered U.S. troops fell back, the local guerrillas liberated Yongdong county, deep in the heart of the U.S. occupied zone. One New York Times reporter wrote that there were about 300 guerrillas, in and around Yongdong, shooting the retreating Amer- icans as they moved through. By late July, as the front approached Yongdong, the U.S. conunand ordered their soldiers to kill civilians. The AP investiga- tive team reports that the morning of the No Gun Ri massacre, “the Eighth Army had radioed orders throughout the Korean front that began, ‘No—repeat no—refugees will be permitted to cross battle lines at any time.’ “ Two days earlier, First Cavalry Division headquarters had issued the order: “No refugees to cross the front line. Use discretion in case of women and children.” Maj. Gen. William B. Kean issued orders to the nearby 25th Infantry Division saying, “All civilians seen in this area are to be considered as enemy and action taken ac- cordingly.” His staff members relayed this as “considered as unfriendly and shot.” The aerial strafing of refugees at No Gun Ri was no isolated incident. The AP writes:
“Declassified United States Air Force mis- sion reports from July and August 1950 show repeated air attacks on groups of ‘people in white.’”
The U.S. military had learned to fear the anti-imperialist consciousness and revolu- tionary organization of the Korean people. The Massacre of Civilians was Routine, Widespread and Officially Approved during this war-as it has been in Every U.S. war of conquest, from the murder of Native peoples in the U.S., to the 1898 invasion of the Philippines, to the 1965 invasion of Vietnam... on down to the recent air war on the people of Yugoslavia. Bruce Cumings notes that the massacre of No Gun Ri may nct have been the first U.S. massacre in Yongdong county. He reports that the Korean People’s Army fighters entering Yongdong were told of an earlier U.S. operation that forced 2,000 civilians into the mountains and killed them—mostly from the air, though several women were reportedly raped before being shot. Cumings adds that a secret U.S. intel- ligence memo has surfaced, addressed to Maj. General Clark Ruffner, discussing the formation of “assassination squads” to hunt down and execute people identified as leaders of the guerrillas. This same tech- nique was widely applied by the CIA’s notorious Operation Phoenix almost 20 years later in Vietnam. In August 1950, Maj. General Hobart R. Gay ordered his soldiers to blow up a bridge over the Naktong River—killing hundreds of refugees. His report on the in- cident did not mention any civilian dead. Later, along the same river, the men of A Company, 14th Engineers had spent two days setting 7,000 pounds of explosive on a second bridge. The detonation order came at 7 a.m., and according to ex-Sgt. Carroll F. Kinsman of Gautier, Mississippi, “It lifted up and turned it sideways and it was full of refugees from end to end.” A simple entry appears in the records, “Results, ex- cellent.” Since 1950, the Pentagon has tried to deny the ugly truth of its war on Korea But the people of Yongdong have not forgotten. They want the world to know the vicious nature of U.S. imperialism. And they demand justice—for the dead and for the living.
(See RW Issue for Picture.)
During the Korean War (1950-1953), Korean people help
carry supplies to the Chinese People's Volunteer Army.
____________________________________________________
Korean Central News Agency Items
More Truth about GIs' Atrocities Disclosed
DPRK Foreign Ministry memorandum on GI mass killings
u.$ Ordered South Korea to Kill 2,000 Political Prisoners.
U.S. condemned for Crime of erasing evidences of Mass Killings.
Japan's Anti-Social, Barbaric, Destruction and Theft of Korean Cultural Materials.
GIs' massacre of civilians disclosed in S. Korea.
_____________________________________
Monstrous Atrocities committed by the U.S. troops and the South Korean "military police" during the Korean War.
The magazine quoted witnesses as saying that the South Korean "marine corps" killed 347 persons who had been detained in a sweet potato store under the control of the Mosulpho police station on Jeju Island on August 20, 1950.
The largest mass killings were the case in which "members of the People's Press Federation" were gunned down across South Korea right after the start of the war, the magazine noted, adding that the South Korean authorities massacred them in the whole area south of Phyongthaek, judging that they would join the people's army.
It also disclosed that a police unit under the Raju police station in South Jolla Province
disguised as the people's army killed civilians by ferreting out sympathizers for it. And
that U.S. troops and "ROK army" perpetrated their mass killings in revenge for
their defeat in the area where they were stationed in November 1950.
February 13 (KCNA) -- 1,890 people have so far been reported to the consultative council
for defoliant victims of South Korea since November last year that they were suffering
from the aftermath of defoliant spread in the demilitarized zone, according to a radio
report from Seoul.
Among the victims are more than 100 people who were already dead and some 50 deformed
children of defoliant victims. The victims decided to organize the association of victims
of defoliant spread along the truce line in Seoul on Feb. 11 in order to launch a struggle
for compensation.
The letter noted that the U.S. has neither admitted nor apologized for the mass killings
committed by them in South Korea for many years and that women have been main targets of
their murder.
Japan kidnapped more than 6 million young and middle-aged Koreans and took away at least
200,000 Korean women as "comfort women for the army." The Japanese reactionaries
are strengthening legal and military systems to repeat their past wrong-doings.
Pyongyang, January 16 (KCNA) -- Remains of political prisoners and civilians mercilessly killed by the "ROK" army and police of South Korea during the last June 25 War were found at a closed mine in the suburbs of Taegu.
Ri Pong Ryon, an old man who found the remains on January 13, said that victims would be
innumerable, witnesses said that a shaft pit of the closed mine was filled with dead
bodies at that time.
Materials and evidence of the genocide committed by the South Korean ruling quarters
recently disclosed one after another show their murderous character.
Pyongyang, January 16 (KCNA) -- There are over 400,000 Businesses for prostitution in
South Korea at which about 1.5 million women have been hired, a commentary of Rodong
Sinmun today discloses.
Such prostitution is encouraged by the ruling quarters who are engaging themselves in
selling the bodys of the people to their Imperialist masters without even a shred of
national conscience and self-respect, only to prolong their dirty lives.
The U.S. occupying troops, regard South Korean women only as sexual playthings to be raped
and killed.
about 330 $outh Korean police officers will be stationed at all the schools of South Jolla. The province and the number of police officers to be dispatched to middle and high schools in Kwangju will be two times those in other areas.
They forced the teachers to actively cooperate in police information gathering as "honorary police officers."
In the middle of the 2nd People's Rally, hundreds of people were wounded,
dozens of people were arrested, and 4 people are in serious condition. Here
are the names of those 4 people:
The Kim regime announced that they would inflict heavy punishment on the demonstrators.
- Comrade Jung Min-sook (F), Sejong Univ., fell down on the road during the violent attack
of the riot police; now wearing an artificial respiratory machine and under the treatment
by a neurologist.
- Comrade Yoon Mi-jung (F), Korea Univ. of Foreign Study, fell down on the road during the
violent attack of the riot police; now wearing an artificial respiratory machine; blood
pressure went all the way down to 70; might have head injury from the loss of oxygen.
- Comrade Lee Jae-hoon (M), Hankook Aviation Univ., was hit by a stone which a policeman
threw and lost the sight of the right eye.
- Comrade Ahn Young-seo (M), Yujoo Farmers' League, cerebral hemorrhage; in critical
condition due to his old age.
U.S. military planes strafed 350 refugees at a port of Ryosu on August 3, 1950, leaving
over 140 of them dead
_________________________________________________________________
More Truth about GIs' Atrocities Disclosed
Pyongyang, March 26 (KCNA) -- The
investigation committee of the
Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland issued indictment no. 2 yesterday
after reinvestigating monstrous mass killings and destruction committed by the U.S.
aggressors in the North Korea from early August to the middle of September 1950 after the
outbreak of the Korean War.
The committee, which was organized at the outset of the war, has investigated and recorded
GIs' massacres for the last 50 years. It issued indictment no. 1 on Feb. 19 disclosing the
truth about massacres committed by GIs from June 25 to early August, 1950.
The indictment no. 2 said that the U.S. aggressors destroyed or burnt 6,122 dwelling
houses and reduced many cultural facilities and peaceful industrial establishments to
ashes in the North Korea from early August to the middle of September 1950.
Among the victims to the U.S. air raids were not only doctors and nurses but mothers at
childbirth and patients and even nursery children.
The U.S. aggressors also killed many rural women workers.Peaceable civilians at work to
rearrange and rehabilitate destroyed streets and houses, farmers on fields, civilians
walking on roads and women washing clothes on the riverside.
U.S. aggressors indiscriminately bombed, bombarded and strafed not only
defenseless major cities but farm and fishery villages and any dwelling house, totally
destroying or burning them.
The indictment cited concrete data to prove that this barbarism resulted in completely
destroying 401,498 Phyong (one Phyong equals six feet square) of farmland in South
Hamgyong Province and 34,182 Phyong in South Phyongan Province just before harvest.
It continued:
All the facts clearly prove once again that the U.S. aggressors are, indeed, beasts in
human skin who are fond of man-hunting and the most shameless warmongers who regard
aggression, plunder and destruction as their favorite amusement.
The Korean nation can never forget the U.S. brutes' crimes in drenching the land of Korea
with the blood of fellow countrymen, burning and destroying their cradles and wealth and
will force them to pay for them a thousand times.
______________________________________________________________________
U.S. Crimes against Humanity
Pyongyang, March 1 (KCNA) -- Truths about genocide committed by the
U.S. aggressor forces during the Korean war (June 1950-july 1953) are being
disclosed one after another.
Over 40 cases of GIs' mass killings of civilians have been disclosed in
South Korea.
The truth about the atrocities has been proved by documents of the U.S.
national archives and declassified documents of the U.S. military and
testimonies of GIs, who participated in
the war, South Korean victims and witnesses.
The Investigation Committee of the Democratic Front for the
Reunification of the Fatherland began issuing a series of indictments
exposing only part of the crimes investigated and confirmed by it over the
last 50 years. This
committee was organized at the outset of the Korean War to investigate and
record the criminal atrocities perpetrated by GIs.
According to the investigation, one million civilians were killed by
them in the southern half of Korea in less than a year after the start of
the war.
It was disclosed recently that over 1,140 civilians were massacred in
Suwon, at least 2,060 in Chungju, more than 2,000 in Puyo and Chongju
respectively, at least 800 in Thongyong,
over 600 in Kongju and Phyongthaek respectively and at least 400 in Kunsan
and Anyang each.
They killed more than a million innocent civilians in the North Korea.
Their mass killings committed during their temporary occupation of some
areas of it were unprecedented.
They brutally murdered at least 15,000 civilians in Pyongyang and over
35,380 or a quarter of the population of Sinchon county, South Hwanghae
Province, in just 50 odd days. The number of those killed by them stood at
At least 19,070 in Anak county and 13,000 in Unryul county of South Hwanghae
Province, at least 1,560 in Cholwon county, Kangwon Province, over 1,500 in
Nampho and at least 1,400 in Sonchon county, North Phyongan Province.
These genocide are the most blatant breach of the wartime law, the
international law on human rights and the international law of
humanitarianism.
Over 190 Espionage flights in One Month
Pyongyang, March 1 (KCNA) -- The U.S. lets strategic and tactical
reconnaissance planes of different types fly for aerial espionage on
the DPRK on over 190 occasions in February,according to the military sources.
"RC-135" strategic reconnaissance plane carried out aerial espionage on
five occasions, an "E-8C" airborne commanding, warning and control plane on
over 20 occasions and "U-2" high altitude reconnaissance plane on over
30 occasions. _______________________________________________________
DPRK Foreign Ministry memorandum on GI mass killings
Pyongyang, March 22 (KCNA) -- The DPRK
Foreign Ministry issued a
memorandum yesterday documenting the truth about the U.S. troops' mass killings of
innocent Koreans during the Korean War (June 1950-July 1953).
The memorandum said that the truth about the U.S. troops' mass killings
has been recently disclosed by a series of U.S. official documents and testimonies by GIs
involved in them, victims and eyewitnesses.
The disclosed massacres are all but the tip of iceberg of the countless
crimes committed by GIs.
The lengthy memorandum had four sub-titles "mass killings by
indiscriminate bombing and bombardment," "the U.S. aggressors' massacre during
their temporary occupation of North Korea," "mass killings by germ and
chemical weapons" and "massacre of POWs."
The U.S. aggressors carried out indiscriminate bombing and naval
bombardment against all urban and rural areas in the north, the memorandum said, and
continued:
More than 10,000 U.S. war planes made over 250 air raids on Pyongyang
from July 11 to August 20, 1951 in which they dropped as many as 4,000 bombs, killing at
least 4,000 innocent civilians and wounding 2,500.
In the whole period of the war, the U.S. aggressors made more than
1,400 air raids on Pyongyang in which they dropped over 428,000 bombs, destroying all
industrial establishments, educational, health and public service facilities and dwelling
houses and killing many innocent civilians.
They made air raids not only on local cities such as Hamhung, Chongjin,
Sinuiju and Wonsan but on rural villages, even on a separate house deep in a mountain.
The U.S. aggressors amassed warships in the east and west seas of Korea
to commit an indiscriminate bombardment on the coastal areas almost every day.
In August 1951, U.S. military planes dropped 2,122 bombs over North
Hamgyong Province and its naval guns fired 6,098 shells at it, leaving 2,857 peaceable
people dead. In the three-year war U.S. air force planes made 800,000 sorties and planes
of the U.S. marines and navy 250,000 sorties into the North Korea 85 percent of which was
to bomb and strafe civilian targets and people.
Napalm and other bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes totaled nearly 600,000
tons, which was over 3.7 times the 161,425 tons of bombs they dropped over Japan proper
during the pacific war. This means that so many bombs were dropped over the territory of
the North Korea less than one-third of the Japanese territory.
The fact-finding group of the Women's International Democratic Federation, in its report
on the investigation made into the GIs' atrocities in the North Korea during the war,
said:
"Every fact proves that this was a war of mass destruction, in which much more houses
and food rather than military targets and war supplies were destroyed and
more women and aged men than combatants killed. This war was against life
itself."
The U.S. aggressors mercilessly killed Korean people wherever they went
in the North Korea.
They committed monstrous massacres in Sinchon county that baffled human
imagination.
The U.S. aggressors herded innocent civilians into the air-raid shelter
and set fire after pouring gasoline over them, massacring them.
They separated babies from their mothers and herded them into different
warehouses. They poured gasoline upon the crying babies, instead of letting them suck
their mothers' milk, and set fire to them. Not content with this,
they threw hand-grenades over them, massacring all of them.
The U.S. aggressors roped people, each group made up of 10-20 persons,
and threw them into a shaft with stone or straw bag of earth on their back.
They killed innocent civilians in such a brutal manner as chopping them
with straw-cutter or skinning them off.
According to the preliminary results of investigation into GIs'
massacres during their temporary occupation of areas of the north, they killed more than a
million innocent civilians:
Over 15,000 in Pyongyang, 35,380 in Sinchon county, 19,072 in Anak county, over 13,000 in
Unryul county, some 6,000 in Haeju, 5,998 in Pyoksong and at
least 5,000 in Anju.
The U.S. aggressors did not hesitate to massively use germ and chemical
weapons in the Korean War in flagrant violation of international laws.
In the period from January to March 1952 when they began an all-out
germ war the U.S. aggressors dropped various germ bombs a total of 804 times over 169
places in alpine, coastal and mountainous areas of the north.
One fourth of the planes involved in air raids on the North Korea
participated in the germ war. Some days their number reached 480 planes.
The U.S. aggressors brutally killed POWs of the Korean People's Army by
using them as guinea pigs for germ weapon experiment.
They committed serious crimes to use a chemical weapon.
They made 33 poison-gas bomb attacks against various areas of the North
Korea from Feb. 27 to Apr. 9, 1952.
They used at least 15 Million
Napalm-shells.
Their planes dropped even food, leaflets and false money containing
poisonous substance.
They also unhesitatingly killed POWs of the KPA by using them as guinea
pigs for a poisonous substance test.
The U.S. aggressors massacred POWs of our side as they pleased during
the Korean War in gross violation of the publicly recognized international laws and war
law and regulations.
They staged such farces as "voluntary repatriation," "private interview
and screening" and "petition for release" in a bid to detain POWs of the
KPA by force.
They mercilessly killed everyone who did not comply with their demands.
On may 27, 1952 at least 800 POWs were killed by flame throwers at the
77th camp on Koje Island for rejecting "voluntary repatriation" and insisting on
their repatriation to the North Korea.
At least 33,600 POWs of the KPA were killed by GIs and tens of
thousands of POWs were wounded or crippled.
The Korean people will surely make the U.S. aggressors pay for the
blood shed by the Korean nation and for the misfortune imposed by them upon it.
The United States can never evade its responsibility for its brutal
massacre of millions of innocent Korean people during the Korean War.
It is a commitment of the U.S. as a criminal state to strictly punish
those criminals who organized and commanded the mass killings or took part in them during
the Korean War and formally apologize to our government
and people and fully compensate for them.
As required by the objective and mission of its charter, the United
Nations should thoroughly investigate the GIs' atrocities during the Korean War and set up
a special tribunal to take an urgent measure for a severe
punishment of the criminals under the international law.
Given that GIs' massacres during the Korean War were committed under
the name of the "UN forces", the UN can not evade its responsibility for
allowing the U.S. to abuse its name.
The UN should take an urgent step to dissolve the "UN forces command"
in South Korea in view of its idea and objective or its purpose to liquidate its
inglorious past.
The DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses its expectation that all
the governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and
personages that treasure peace, justice and human rights, will render positive cooperation
in the efforts to thoroughly probe the truth about GIs' mass killings and severely punish
the war criminals under the international law.
_______________________________________________________
u.$ Ordered South Korea to Kill 2,000 Political Prisoners.
Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- It was disclosed recently in the course
of probe into the U.S.'s brutal mass killings of civilians in Yongdong that by the U.S.
ordered the "ROK" army and South Korean police to massacre without trial at
least 2,000 "political prisoners" in Yongo-ri, Jichon-myon, Chilgok county of
North Kyongsang Province.
______________________________________________________________________
Korean Central News Agency Sep 24
GIs' massacre of civilians disclosed in S. Korea.
Pyongyang, September 24 (KCNA) -- At least 30,000 innocent citizens
were massacred in Pusan, Ulsan and other areas of South Kyongsang Province before and
after the Korean War, according to Yonhap News from Seoul.
Among them are those killed by GIs and victims of the news federation
incident.
This was disclosed at an inaugural meeting of the "south Kyongsang
provincial preparatory meeting for settlement of the issue of massacres of civilians"
and a seminar held at the Catholic Public Education Hall in Changwon, South Kyongsang
Province on Sept. 20.
Kim Ju Wan, head of the public media team of "Kyongnam Provincial
People's Daily News" said that "at least 10,000 members of the news federation
were killed by GIs in south Kyongsang province and that 1,000 civilians in over 20 places,
10,000 political prisoners and members of the news federation in Pusan, 1,600 people in
Kochang, Sanchong and Hamyang incidents and those in Oegong-ri of Mt. Jiri, Sichon of
Sanchong county and Samjang incident, 30,000 in all.
Japan's Anti-Social, Barbaric, Destruction and Theft of Korean Cultural Materials.
Pyongyang, June 21 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article
urges Japan to sincerely apologize for its destruction and plunder of
cultural relics of Korea, return all the looted cultural relics and make
compensation for all those destroyed.
The article cites facts to prove that after the military occupation of
Korea the Japanese imperialists destroyed and looted a lot of cultural relics, thus doing
unspeakable mental and material damage to the Korean people.
The destruction and plunder of cultural relics in Korea were organized
crimes committed under a premeditated plan of the Japanese government.
As early as in 1894 the Japanese imperialists worked out and
promulgated even an "ordinance" what they called "method of collecting
treasure" and dispatched many spies to Korea to survey and get firsthand knowledge of
distribution of cultural relics.
After occupying Korea, the Japanese imperialists took away cultural
relics from various parts of Korea under the guidance of such Japanese
bosses as Japanese "Resident-General" in Korea Ito Hirobumi and first
Japanese "Governor-General" Terauchi.
They threw into fire hundreds of thousands of history books of hundreds
of kinds. Among them were "Biography of Ulji Mun Dok" and "Tales of Great
Men". And they also looted tens of thousands of national classic books
listed as national treasures including Rijosilrok (the true records of the Ri
dynasty.)
They went the length of plundering Koreans of heirlooms handed
down for generations.
They took away at least tens of thousands of cultural relics under the
name of "exhibition".
The Japanese imperialists' destruction and plunder of cultural
treasures was most hideous and barbarous.
They took to Japan many relics inside King Kongmin's mausoleum, one of
the mausoleums offering valuable data on the study of the technique of Koryo
stone-building during Koryo dynasty after opening it through a blasting.
The same savage method was employed to destroy and loot mural paintings
inside three tombs in Kangso.
Their plunder of Korean cultural relics can never be covered up and
they will certainly be made to pay for their crimes despite the flow of
time, the article concludes.
_____________________________________________________________
U.S.
condemned for Crime of erasing evidences of Mass Killings.
Pyongyang, August 20 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the north headquarters of the Nationwide Special Committee for Probing the Truth Behind the GIs' Massacres released a statement on Saturday strongly denouncing the United States for removing evidences of mass killings.
In the early 1970s the U.S. forces in South Korea removed out with technical means empty cartridges, splinters and other evidences of mass killings in Rogun-ri committed by GIs during the last Korean War. This serious criminal deed was brought to light recently by testimonies of South Korean inhabitants and the technical survey of the scene and its surrounding areas conducted by the "investigation team for probing the truth behind massacres in Rogun-ri".
In this regard people at home and abroad strongly condemn it as a deed intended to bury into oblivion the case of mass killings forever, the statement said, and went on:
The United States has not yet uttered a word of apology to the families of the victims of the Rogun-ri case demanding apology and compensation, but attempted to wipe out the evidences of those massacres.
However, the monstrous crimes committed by the U.S. aggressors against the Korean nation during the Korean War can never be covered up.
The north headquarters of the nationwide special committee strongly demands that the U.S. not attempt to evade its responsibility for such crimes by erasing evidences but frankly admit them, punish their organizers and executors and make an apology and compensation to the Korean nation.
_____________________________________________________
Page 14—Revolutionary Worker—October 31,1999
Deconstructing Vanity Fair
Sinister Scenarios Behind the Media Lies About Mumia
by C. Clark Kissinger
The following article by C. Clark Kissinger was written in September of this year. As you know, this fall is a critical mo- ment in the fight to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal. With his appeal going to the federal courts, the battle enters its final stage. Vanity Fair magazine chose this junc- ture to publish an article claiming to present the “real inside story” on Mumia Their article was capped off with a claim by a former volunteer for the Philadelphia Prison Society, that Mumia had confessed to him. As part of an organized media cam- paign, ABC’s 20/20 and the Associated Press also carried the alleged “confession” stoly at the same time. In July I published an article refuting some of the most blatant factual distortions in the Vanity Fair piece, and exposing the long-standing ties of its author to Philadelphia’s power structure. (See “A Myth Repeated: A Reply to Vanity Fair and the F.O.P.”, RW#1015. Also available on- line at: www.mcs.netkrwor) Subsequently, the “confession” claim was thoroughly refuted by written documents from the per- son making the claim. But as always hap- pens, the sensational chaige got massive publicity while the refutation was heard by few. The “confession” hoax was not the heart of the Vanity Fair article, however. So I am taking the time now to “deconstruct” the approach of the Vanity Fair article, and look more deeply at what it sought to do. I hope you find this useful.
Analyzing the 20/20 Program
Both 20/20 and Vanity Fair tiy to provide arrative framework for their respective diences to guide how those audiences ll understand what they hear about the se. Let’s look at 20/20 first. To make their narratives more compell- ing, both 20/20 and Vanity Fair provide "characters.” 20/20 draws its heroes and villains somewhat crudely. Its narrative is relatively simple: A young policeman, just starting his life, is tragically gunned down. he open-and-shut case is quickly disposed of by a jury. But a charlatan lawyer, gether with frivolous Hollywood elebrities who don’t really know or care bout the facts, twists this into an intema- ional cause celebre. The defense has noth- ngbut a few easily dismissed technicalities to harp on, but they seize on anything to argue for Mumia Abu-Jainal’s innocence. 20/20 paints a movement made up of paranoid Black militants, impressionable students, and foreigners with an anti- American bias. Pitted against this “juggernaut” is the lonely widow of the officer, working alone at her computer writ- ing 100-page documents, subject to abuse and vilification by this movement and by Jamal himself In this narrative, the main characters are the widow (the hero) and attorney Leonard Weinglass (the villain). Ed Asner and Mike Farrell are cast as dilettantes with a cause. Mumia himself is relegated to a strange role—an offstage character around whom the action pivots, but whose persona and motivations are never clearly delineated. Sam Donaldson plays both narrator and open-ntnded tough-guy journalist. He is supposed to guide the audience’s emo- tions—sympathetic to the widow, barely able to contain his incredulity at the absur- dities he encounters from the lawyer, and impatient to see the sentence carried out and the noble widow given closure. This 20/20 show was first shown at the end of last year. But it clearly did not ac- complish its aim of slowing down the momentum of the movement to stop Mumia's execution. A Rage Against the Machine concert and large-scale teach-ins in the Oakland public schools showed the potential for the movement to reach out quite broadly. The success of the “Millions for Mumia” demonstrations on April 24 probably surprised Mumia's would-be ex- ecutiners. The Evergreen State College in- cident clearly stung them. So the 20/20 piece was updated and run again in July.
Vanity Fair—A More Refined Strategy of Attack
But the Vanity Fair article represented a new development. I think they are finally starting to realize that a big attraction of the Mumia movement is Mumia himself. The statement of Evergreen State College Presi- dent Jane Jervis put it well. “Abu-Jamal deserved inclusion [as a speaker at the Evergreen graduation ceremony] because he has used his free speech rights to gal- vanize an international conversation about the death penalty, the disproportionate number of Blacks on death row, the relationship between poverty and the criminal justice system.” So Vanity Fair appears in July with a refined strategy. More sophisticated audiences require more motivations and subtlety to make the case against Mumia believable. Vanity Fair does at least three things differently than 20/20—and one thing similar The similar thing is their treatment of the widow Maureen Faulkner. The different things are these: First, they actually mention some of the key issues surrounding the case. They ac- knowledge that, “After reading the trial transcript, one could reasonably conclude that, in terms of fairness, there were some potentially troubling developments.” They cite questions about the impartiality of the judge, questions about whether Mumia’s right to defend himself was violated. “There was the possibility [sic] that the resources allotted by the court for Abu- Jamal’s representation, roughly $14,000, were simply inadequate by any standard, since he was facing the death penalty." They gently say, "There was the question of why witnesses who meight conceivably have been helpful in advancing the defense theory that another person had shot Faulkner were never called.” There are reasons, according to Vanity Fair, why people might have qualms about the trial and the political situation in Philadelphia surrounding it. Well-docu- mented brutality and corruption in the Philadelphia police department are referred to, but as part of an effort to debunk Mumia’s credentials as an anti-police brutality reporter. It establishes that the author, Buzz Bissinger, knows that the Phil- ly cops have a dark underside. Of course, Bissinger acknowledges all this only so that he can say that despite the justness of these concerns, the fact remains that Mumia killed Faulkner. By doing so, he hopes to disarm a more savvy audience. Of course, there are many problems that Bissinger does not address. He steers clear, for example, of ballistics evidence on the trajectory of the bullet that shot Mumia that shows the prosecution scenario to be im- possible. Even if Faulkner were shot first (for which there is no evidence), the prosecution scenario would have him wheel around after being shot in the back and stand above Mumia to fire the bullet that entered him heading downward. Fur- ther, various witness statements changed dramatically between the time they were first given to police to the time of trial. And, not only were there important witnesses not called, but one key witness, a police officer whose report refutes the claim that Mumia confessed the night of the shooting, was “on vacation” and kept unavailable to tes- tify. The point is this: The burden of proof rests on the prosecution. If their scenario is impossible, if their witnesses are not credible, if they have not assembled ir- refutable physical evidence—end they have not in this case—then the accused is not guilty. Moreover, if errors in procedure have been committed that are so grave as to deny the defendant due process, then ac- cording to the rules of the court system, the trial must be thrown out. Vanity Fair tries to say that it doesn’t matter that the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office is world-renowned for racism and corruption.. It has been inves- tigated numerous times by federal authorities for this, and made a cover-story for TIME magazine. According to Vanity Fair it doesn’t matter that the Philly D.A.’s office has been caught using instructional videotapes on how to exclude Black jurors, which is, by the way, illegal. Eleven Black jurors were dismissed from Mumia’s jury pool. It doesn’t matter that hundreds of people have been released from jail based on an investigation in 1995 of the regular Philadelphia police practice of framing people and planting evidence. It doesn’t matter that one of the very sane cops who was exposed for these practices was ex- posed for his role in trying to get someone to make false statements to incriminate Mumia Most recently Len Weinglass has cited the case of Matthew Connor, another case that Mumia-prosecutor Joseph McGill called “open and shut.” Connor spent 12 years in prison before the truth came out. The second difference with 20/20 is that Bissinger and Vanity Fair bring Mumia himself front and center. This begins with an attempt to debunk Mumia’s bona fides as a reporter. Bissinger understands that the true story of Mumia has actually been key to the way this struggle has developed. People look at the man’s life—from the Black Panther Party to his years as a jour- nalist and now to his time on death row-- and they see someone who’s devoted his life to fighting for justice. They read his writings today and have no trouble under- standing both how he could have been a very compelling journalist and why his brand ofjournalism could earn the hatred of the authorities. So people figure that whatever happened on that night, that the police and courts were going to get Mumia by hook or crook. At minimum, most people cannot reconcile the life of Mumia with the prosecution scenario and charge of murder in the first degree. Bissinger responds with a cynical counter-scenario, well-suited to a cynical age. Bissinger labels Mumia’s conviction and sentence as a good career move on Mumia’s part! Bissinger wants people to see Mumia as someone who lost direction at a certain point and, in a not very subtle racist slant, a Black man just too irrespon- sible to make it. He tried the patience of his long-suffering employers one time too many, and finally came “apart personally and professionally.” Bissinger paints Mumia as extremely unstable, perhaps on drugs (“he seemed high all the time,” one anonymous source says), a guy who had carried a gun for 2 1/2 years, a time-bomb waiting to go off who happened to go off on a well-meaning, nice cop like “Danny” Faulkner. Then, once in prison, Mumia begins anew “career," one in which he is lionized by the mighty. Here Bissinger is trying to supply a plausible explanation of Mumia’s behavior that would fit the prosecution scenario. It is worth noting that all of Bissinger’s Mumia- detractors are anonymous. Bissinger chose not to use a three-hour interview he con- ducted with Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington. Washington’s close knowl- edge of Mumia and the case put the lie to Bissinger’s portrait. The third new thing Bissinger does is the news hook of the story: he introduces a new character—Philip Block Bloch is pre- sented as someone with liberal leanings, someone drawn to Mumia in many ways, but still someone whose conscience finally compelled him to “come forwaid.” Not an easy decision, Bloch says, as he still respects Mumia and hopes that he doesn’t get executed. But truth is truth, and so he had “to come forward.” Bloch is important to the article for two reasons: first, he is supposed to be the final piece of evidence. But Bloch also fills an important symbolic function. He is sup- posed to be the stand-in for the reader—the reader who may have been attracted to Mumia, may have doubts about the case against him, may not wish to see him ex- ecuted, but who—unlike the callous celebrities—has finally seen the light and decided to side with Maureen Faulkner. Note how Bloch’s conversation is framed—the alleged -“calumny” against Maureen Faulkner is what drives him to go public (in Philly papers Bloch said that had Faulkner been single, he probably never would have “gone public”). These angles have all been deepened as Bloch became a celebrity himself in Philadelphia, all the while claiming to have been Mumia’s “friend.” Bloch makes a another noteworthy state- ment in Vanity Fair on why he came for- ward. He says that “I see the level of hatred that’s being amused in people towards the police. And I think it’s just crossed a line.” My observation is that the movement for justice for Mumia has focused a good deal on the travesty of Mumia’s trial, and not on brutality by police. We don’t talk enough, in my opinion, about the brutality inflicted on Mumia that night. One thing that has changed in the past few years is the grow- ing movement against police brutality. This movement has given voice to the families of people killed by the police, and has begun to point to a problem of epidemic proportions. Bloch now describes this as a motivating factor for his “coming for- ward.” Whatever his motivations, Bloch’s story does not hold up. Linn Washington writes, “I question Bloch’s allegation, especially since I sat in the same place Bloch says he sat when Mumia made his indirect confes- sion.... I interviewed Mumia inside these cubicles at Huntingdon and Mumia refused to talk freely inthe cubicles because he said prison authorities planted hidden micro- phones to eavesdrop. During the interview, I asked Mumia a question regarding the shooting of Faulkner. He refused to respond giving two reasons: (1) his lawyers told him not to discuss that incident; and (2) the cubicle was bugged. Mumia is no fool. By the time of Bloch’s visits in 1991-1992, Mumia was a veteran of many battles with prison authorities and was well aware of their tactics, like bugging these cubicles.” Since the Vanity Fair article appeared, we have uncovered a letter that Bloch sent to Mumia many months after the “con- fession” conversation supposedly took place. In the letter Bloch writes, “So, it is possible to get justice from a jury. Not al- ways, but sometimes. So, when you get a new trial I think there is a good chance of acquittal.” Bloch also signed an ad for Mumia in the Harrisburg Patriot News in 1995. The ad called on people to “Take a Stand for Mumia,” the signatories declar- ing, “We care about Mumia because there is compelling evidence that points to his innocence.” These are hardly the actions of someone privy to information of Mumia’s guilt.
Maureen Faulkner— Pointwoman for a Reactionary Crusade
Yet Bloch’s symbolic importance be- comes clearer when you see that it is he who leads the reader to the final focus on Maureen Faulkner. She is portrayed as suf- fering alone, “putting out the fires of hell,” while Mumia is living the life of Riley.. .on death row! A few things that need to be said here. First, the portrayal in Vanity Fair not withstanding, Maureen Faulkner is not out there alone. She is the spokesperson for powerful forces who have a whole agenda for society that includes intensified police powers, gutting of defendants’ rights, and stepped-up use of the death penalty. Second, I think Maureen does have to be accountable for what she is doing. She has willingly become the pointwoman for a crusade to kill a man railroaded in a kan- garoo court, as well as for the larger agenda of racist mass imprisonment and state- sponsored murder bound up in his case. Third, Mumia has a right to due process, and Maureen Faulkner does NOT have a right to prevent him from getting it in the name of “closure.” I feel there are a number of questions that need to be addressed by these people cam- paigning for Mumia’s execution, especially those who claim to be great authorities on the trial transcripts. I think we need to know what they think of the jury-picking prac- tices in Philadelphia and at Mumia’s trial itself. We need to know what they think of Judge Sabo—his record overall and his conduct at Mumia’s trial in particular. We need to understand whether they consider it to be judicial or prosecutorial misconduct when critical witnesses and evidence are hidden from the defense. We also need to know their views on the death penalty. Do they find it alanning that 61 percent of those on death row in Penn- sylvania are Black when Black people make up only 10 percent of the state’s population? What do they think about the fact that 55 percent of Pennsylvania’s death row is made up of people from Philadel- phia, while Philadelphia holds only 15 per- cent of the state’s population. And, beyond Pennsylvania, what do they think about the 80+ people nationally, who have gotten off death row in recent years only because they had a chance to prove their innocence after their regular trial was over?
Time is short in the fight for Mumia’s life. As is the case with everything worth fighting for, we expect it to be just that—a fight. But to win, we must face every attack and turn it around. If Vanity Fair (and the accompanying stories on 20/20 and AP) brought knowledge of Mumia to many more people, we must reach those many people with the issues and the truth. ________________________________________________________________
Mumia 3-24-00 Reply to State HP Response
INTRODUCTION
Petitioner Mumia Abu-Jamal filed a 683 paragraphed Petition for Habeas Corpus Relief, itemizing the essential and background facts supporting his contention that his trial (both the guilt and penalty phase) was unfair. Had the trial been fair, evidence undermining the prosecution’s vulnerable theory of guilt and evidence supporting a powerful defense theory of innocence would have been presented for jury consideration. Had the trial been fair, evidence justifying a "life" verdict (assuming the case would have even reached the penalty phase) would have exposed the caricature presented by the trial prosecutor to secure a "death" verdict.
The Commonwealth begs off the uncomfortable task of confronting the details of this case – "for the sake of clarity," it claims – by refusing to issue an Answer to the Petition. While a detailed Answer, with appropriate admissions and denials, typically serves to clarify the controversy in litigation, the Commonwealth’s avoidance of the details of the case, when considered in conjunction with its submitted memoranda, reveals that it plainly cannot account for the stunning evidence indicating that the jury’s guilt and penalty verdicts are totally unreliable.
The Commonwealth's approach in this litigation, which is but a repeat of its approach in the state-court PCRA process, reveals a three-pronged strategy: launch ad hominem attacks upon defense counsel, distort the record on the assumption that it will never be read, and blame Jamal for the travesty of the trial process. Attacks upon counsel, of course, are no substitute for legal analysis. With respect to the record, this Court has plenary authority, as an Article III court, to review the state court record to fulfill its obligations to ensure compliance with the United States Constitution (an obligation untouched by the AEDPA). Finally, the evidence shows that Jamal was a victim of an unfair trial process, not the source of that unfairness.
I. THE COMMONWEALTH’S OMISSIONS AND DISTORTIONS REGARDING THE FACT-WITNESSES
The Commonwealth’s Memorandum #1 opens, in the very first paragraph, with two blatant falsehoods. First, the Commonwealth asserts that "[s]everal eyewitnesses" – later specified to be four such witnesses – saw Jamal kill Officer Daniel Faulkner. (Mem. #1 at 9, 12) Second, the Commonwealth claims that Jamal "tried to shoot the arriving police officers." (Id. at 9) Both assertions are palpably false.
The latter point should be dispensed with first, as it is a cheap shot injected into this litigation solely to inflame. The prosecutor at trial never even insinuated that Jamal had attempted to shoot the arriving police officers -- a revealing fact, given his otherwise unrestrained argumentation in both the guilt and penalty phases -- and for good reason. First, no witness ever testified that Jamal "tried to shoot the arriving officers." Second, throughout this case, the prosecution has maintained that all five chambers of Jamal's gun were empty when police arrived at the scene. On the prosecution’s own theory of guilt, Jamal had no rounds with which to shoot anyone.
As for the "four eyewitnesses," the Commonwealth omits any mention of the following indisputable facts concerning witness descriptions of the physical attributes of the shooter:
Cynthia White (the prostitute who received favorable treatment by law enforcement, according to testimony unexpectedly blurted out by Veronica Jones at the 1982 trial) initially told police that the shooter was "short" (her estimate: "shorter than 5'8""), while Jamal is lean and tall (6'1");
Robert Chobert (the cab driver on probation and driving without a valid license who solicited assistance from the trial prosecutor concerning his livelihood) described the shooter as "heavy" – indeed, about fifty five pounds heavier than Mumia (his estimate: 225 pounds);
Chobert saw that the shooter wore "jeans" and a brown shirt, whereas Jamal was wearing a brightly-colored red and blue ski jacket and khaki flowing "Arab" pants;
Michael Scanlan (the prosecution’s most reliable fact witness) expressed "certain[ty]" that the shooter had an "Afro" hairstyle, while Jamal had distinctive dreadlocks (perhaps Jamal’s most distinctive physical attribute), and he mis-identified Jamal as the driver of the Volkswagen (he specifically disavowed that Jamal was the shooter);
Albert Magilton (the pedestrian crossing the street when shooting erupted) did not see the shooting at all and could provide no description of the shooter.
These witnesses, to be sure, saw Jamal briskly walk and then run across Locust St. towards the scene where Officer Faulkner and Billy Cook were engaged in a scuffle. This aspect of the incident was never in dispute. The key event, however, was the shooting of Jamal. If Jamal was shot first by a frightened Officer Faulkner and fell to the ground (which is strongly suggested by the evidence), the witnesses (with the exception of Cynthia White) would have mistakenly assumed that a third civilian (a passenger in the Volkswagen) who was short and heavy-set with an Afro hairstyle was the same man who had darted across Locust. Upon that mistaken assumption, the witnesses could harbor the impression that the Locust St. runner (Jamal) was also the shooter.
Witness Scanlan’s testimony illuminates the point. Although he testified that the man running across Locust brandished a gun, he later admitted that this was an "assumption" on his part. He assumed Jamal brandished a gun because he assumed that the man running across the street was the shooter. The assumption operated so compellingly in his mind that he initially testified to the brandishing of the gun as a statement of fact.
Scanlan appropriately described the events as awash in confusion. In the darkened night, with the red flashing turret light blurring the scene, Jamal’s rapid elimination from view by virtue of a gunshot wound could easily have been missed. And indeed, such is the case. None of the witnesses who claimed to see the shooting of Officer Faulkner, and the events immediately leading up to that shooting, can account for Jamal’s gunshot wound. The explanation, however, is clear: Jamal was shot earlier in the episode, before attention was riveted to the scene by the eruption of gunfire, and was displaced by a third civilian who was likely angered by Officer Faulkner’s quick use of deadly force. The witnesses never saw Officer Faulkner fire at the actual shooter because the actual shooter was never shot.
That the actual shooter was never hit by gunfire from Officer Faulkner’s gun is not only confirmed by eyewitness accounts of the shooting itself; it is confirmed by what five independent eyewitnesses observed in the immediate wake of the shooting. Here, too, the Commonwealth’s truncated narrative omits critical facts. The Commonwealth, for example, states that Chobert’s account given at the scene comported with his trial account. This is patent nonsense. Chobert explicitly told authorities that the shooter "ran away." (6/1/82 Tr. 70) Although Jamal was found slouched on a curb within a few feet of the slain officer, Chobert directed the police’s attention to the path of the shooter’s flight: eastbound on Locust, where a nearby alleyway provided an easy escape route for the actual shooter. Precisely because the shooter "ran away" after firing at the officer, Chobert felt safe to leave his cab and walk towards the slain officer before the police arrived. Chobert never told police on December 9, 1981, that the shooter walked or stumbled the few feet to the curb where Jamal was ultimately found by arriving officers. He had told police the shooter "ran away." That characterization of the shooter’s immediate response after the shooting exonerates Jamal, as it is undisputed that Jamal was in no condition to run (and did not run from the scene to any degree). Consequently, Chobert’s trial testimony, wherein he recanted this claim that the shooter "ran away," was devastating to the defense.
The fact that Chobert claimed that the police apprehended the fleeing shooter is both understandable and insignificant. Because Chobert believed he had made an accurate identification of the shooter after the police arrived at the scene, he assumed that the fleeing shooter had been apprehended. The important point here, which the Commonwealth ignores, is Chobert’s impression that the shooter was apprehended while running away, which is an impression that is dictated by his belief that he had made a positive identification.
As for the other witnesses to flight, the Commonwealth attempts unsuccessfully to defuse the following facts:
Dessie Hightower (the young college student called by the defense) told police he saw a person flee in the same direction described by Chobert and stuck with that account at trial, even though he alone had been subject, without cause, to an onerous polygraph examination.
The Commonwealth deflects the analysis towards the irrelevant issue of whether Hightower passed a polygraph examination where flight was never broached as a topic. The fact that Hightower was the only eyewitness subject to a polygraph examination, without explanation, is the relevant point, as it suggests that investigators sought to discredit a witness who was unwilling to retract, or at the least, water down, his account.
The Commonwealth submits that Hightower has somehow altered his position and asserted that he saw a man running from the scene before the police arrived. (Mem. #1 at 26) A glance at his trial testimony proves the point: "after I seen the person [run away] . . . about maybe ten seconds later, that's when the first officer came on the scene. . . . (7/28/82 Tr. 126-27)(emphasis added) He then reiterated this fact on the very next question. That ten-second gap was more than enough time for a fleeing shooter to run the thirty steps and reach the nearby alleyway.
Deborah Kordansky (the young woman who was in a hotel room overlooking the scene) also described flight in the same direction as described by Chobert.
Kordansky was hostile to the defense, even as far back as 1982. She had told trial counsel that she had an aversion towards black men, having been raped by a black man in the late seventies. The Commonwealth dispenses with Kordansky with the postulate that she may have told police about a man running towards the scene after the police arrived. Contrary to the Commonwealth's claims, Kordansky repeatedly resisted the prosecution's suggestion that he was running toward the arriving police, and insisted that her best recollection was that the man was running eastward. (8/3/95 Tr. 253-54)
The Commonwealth never attempts to explain why Kordansky would bother to tell police the manifestly irrelevant detail about a person running towards police already at the crime scene. Moreover, it makes no sense for the police, who were, presumably, highly interested in determining the identity of the shooter, to record such irrelevant material in a police interview statement (while omitting any mention of a confession in all the police reports relating to the homicide investigation). In fact, Kordansky came down from her hotel room and voluntarily provided an account to the police at the crime scene; her only reason for doing so was to help in the apprehension of the shooter. There was a reason defense counsel at trial desperately wanted Kordansky to appear: she bolstered the defense theory that the shooter had fled immediately after the shooting, a claim that Hightower, Chobert, and Veronica Jones supported in their initial statements to the police.
William Singletary (the bystander who spoke with Highway Patrol Officer Vernon Jones) observed the shooter flee in the same direction as Chobert described.
The Commonwealth continues its silence regarding the highly suspicious fact that this supposedly irrelevant bystander who saw nothing of consequence received so much police attention at a time when resources were at a premium (again, while a damning confession allegedly fell through the investigative cracks).
Nor has the Commonwealth been able to suggest why this witness, with a stable background, no criminal record and no bias against law enforcement, would inject himself into this case and proffer palpably false testimony. Its own police witness testified that he knew Singletary to be a respectable businessman who had no bias against police, and that there was "nothing unusual" about Singletary. (8/14/95 Tr. 28-29)
Finally, the Commonwealth has no answer to the fact that Singletary was the only witness who accurately described Jamal's pants as green Arab-style "harem" pants, "long and flowing," with "elastic in the ankle." (8/11/95 Tr. 279) While the Commonwealth insinuates that this description is far-fetched (Mem. #1 at 32), it is actually accurate (Chobert, by contrast, identified the shooter as wearing jeans, which is patently wrong) -- a fact that can be verified by simply examining the pants.
Veronica Jones (the prostitute who stunningly recanted her observations concerning flight at the 1982 trial) saw two persons flee.
The Commonwealth blatantly ignores crucial testimony given by a Philadelphia law enforcement witness at the 1996 supplemental PCRA hearing. Det. Daniel Bennett (now retired) testified that he and another detective interviewed Jones at her mother’s home six days after the shooting. The visit was unannounced in advance, and Jones appeared to Det. Bennett to be lucid and clear-headed. Det. Bennett memorialized the interview with Jones in a standard police interview form. When asked to explain the thrust of Jones’s account during that interview, Det. Bennett explained that Jones had described seeing two persons running away from the scene. (10/2/96 Tr. 252, 257) Det. Bennett was "positive" that Jones was describing flight away, not towards, the crime scene. (Id.)
The Commonwealth nonetheless insists, without evidentiary support, that Jones’s account of what she saw, as memorialized in Det. Bennett’s report, indicates that two men were running towards the scene of the shooting. That Det. Bennett, the person who would know best, disavows such an interpretation of Jones’s rendition of what she observed figures not at all in the Commonwealth’s treatment of the record.
Finally, in a brief submitted by the Commonwealth during the PCRA proceedings, the Commonwealth agreed that Jones had "retracted her earlier statement that she had seen someone running from the scene." (Com. Br. 83)(emphasis added.)
II. THE EVIDENCE CONCERNING STATE MANIPULATION AND SUPPRESSION OF EVIDENCE CONCERNING FLIGHT FROM THE CRIME SCENE
The Unlicensed Cabdriver Robert Chobert: As to whether the Commonwealth wrongfully suppressed evidence concerning a colloquy between Chobert and the prosecutor, the Commonwealth points to Chobert’s self-serving testimony that there was no "deal." (Mem. #1 at 48) Obviously, as shown in Petitioner’s December 6, 1999 Memorandum, the legal analysis does not hinge upon formalistic labeling (whether an arrangement is properly denominated a "deal" or an "agreement" is of no constitutional moment), let alone a lay witness’s characterization. (See Petitioner’s 12/6/99 Mem. at 36-39) The key factual issue, which a jury was entitled to evaluate, was Chobert’s state of mind, and how the colloquy may have affected it. In that regard, evidence that Chobert took the initiative in seeking assistance from the prosecutor suggests that he could have been influenced by the trial prosecutor’s willingness to help him on a matter he regarded as important. Moreover, regardless whether such assistance was forthcoming, the fact is that Chobert believed the trial prosecutor was intending to assist him. This array of evidence receives no treatment by the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth also speculates that the colloquy may have occurred after Chobert testified. The evidence shows that after Chobert testified, he ceased having any dealings with the trial prosecutor, as the trial prosecutor "just came over and shook my hand and said thank you and left." (8/15/95 Tr. at 28) The colloquy at issue here, the evidence reveals, occurred before Chobert testified.
This evidence that Chobert reached out to the prosecutor, and the prosecutor gave him the impression that assistance was forthcoming, cannot be evaluated in the abstract – something the Commonwealth attempts to do. It is a matter of record that Chobert recanted his initial report to the police that the shooter "ran away." It is also a matter of record that Jamal, injured with a gunshot wound and slouched on the curb within a few feet of the slain officer, could not have been the person Chobert saw running away. Chobert claimed that his trial testimony constituted a correction to a "mistake" he made in his account to crime scene investigators. Chobert’s colloquy with the trial prosecutor – whether labeled a "deal" or an "agreement" – suggests that Chobert’s testimonial turnabout was something other than that.
The Two Prostitutes -- Cynthia White and Veronica Jones: The Commonwealth denies that law enforcement issued promises and favors to Cynthia White, the prostitute. Although the Commonwealth seemingly relishes insinuating that Jamal’s post-conviction counsel are willing to manufacture evidence to support a theory of innocence, the incontrovertible fact remains that evidence of police manipulation of White surfaced, to the astonishment of everyone, at the 1982 trial through the testimony of Veronica Jones. Jones blurted out to an unexpecting defense counsel:
They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it, you know, intentionally. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl said. I couldn't do it. . . . I guess they expected me to say something in their behalf, you know, but I couldn't. I just saw what I saw. . . . It more so came about when we had brought up Cynthia's name and they told us we can work the area if we tell them. (Tr. 6/29/82: 129, 132, 135-36.)
The Commonwealth does not contest the fact that it never disclosed that law enforcement had offered such inducements to White and Jones. Instead, the Commonwealth argues that "petitioner knew of this allegation by Jones at the time of his trial." (Mem. #1 at 50) That such Brady material surfaced, but was never developed, in the midst of trial does not eclipse the constitutional force of Jamal’s contention here. In fact, it reinforces it.
The Commonwealth also overlooks the fact that Jones is not a witness who simply comes out of the proverbial "woodwork" to provide testimony years later. She had indisputably recanted her earlier claim that two people ran from the scene, a devastating blow to the defense, as the trial minutes reveal. As with Chobert, this recantation cried out for explanation. Her 1996 testimony provides it. In essence, the Commonwealth is comfortable leaving unexplained the fact that Chobert and Jones recanted at trial a point that was vital to the defense. Such comfort, however, comes at the expense of ignoring the newly-discovered evidence which is set forth in the Petition.
The Driver’s License Found On Faulkner’s Person: The Commonwealth concedes that a driver’s license form was found inside the slain officer’s pants pocket. (Mem. #1 at 35) The form belonged to one Arnold Howard, who testified at the PCRA proceedings that he had given the form to Billy Cook’s business associate, Kenneth Freeman. The Commonwealth never disclosed that this document was found on Officer Faulkner’s person. Indeed, there is no mention at all of this document in the property receipt for the officer's clothes, or anywhere else in the disclosed police reports. Although the Commonwealth in the PCRA proceedings did not contest the fact that this information was never disclosed before, it now asserts for the first time that Jamal "finds it convenient to assume that this fact was not disclosed." (Mem. #1 at 56) Significantly, the Commonwealth is unwilling to deny that this information was withheld, preferring instead to play a nonsensical word-game, asserting that this aspect of the Petition rests on "nothing more than an assumption." (Id.)
That this information was withheld is no assumption; it is a fact. Moreover, it is a fact specified explicitly in the Petition. The Commonwealth refuses to issue a detailed answer to that Petition. Its disingenuous handling of this particular issue reveals why: rather than admit uncomfortable facts supporting the Petition, the Commonwealth prefers argumentation that obfuscates the issues.
III. THE FABRICATED CONFESSION AND THE COMMONWEALTH’S ABSURD CONTENTION THAT WAKSHUL WAS A WITNESS FAVORABLE TO THE PROSECUTION
The Commonwealth continues to insist, with apparent shamelessness, that P.O. Gary Wakshul would have been a favorable prosecution witness, and that, therefore, defense counsel’s failure to secure his attendance actually benefitted Jamal. (Mem. #1 at 62) This contention, which has a "twilight-zone" quality to it, was relied upon by Judge Sabo in denying PCRA relief. More than any other aspect of this case, Judge Sabo’s handling of this issue, which was nothing more than the verbatim borrowing of the Commonwealth’s handling of the issue, exposes the futility of the PCRA litigation.
To begin with, the Commonwealth never mentions the central fact upon which Jamal’s Petition hinges (vis a vis Wakshul’s non-attendance): Wakshul signed a report, prepared within an hour or so after two witnesses claimed to have heard Jamal boast about killing the officer, indicating that "the negro male made no comments." No genuine and good faith consideration of the issue can proceed with such a glaring omission. The most the Commonwealth can say – and it is a blatant falsehood – is that Wakshul "fail[ed] to mention the admission in his first report." (Mem. #1 at 62)
Wakshul did not "fail[] to mention the admission in his first report." He stated the opposite of what the prosecution witnesses claimed, affirmatively refuting that an inculpatory admission was ever made. Judge Sabo, at trial, attempted the same sort of legerdemain with defense counsel, suggesting that Wakshul simply failed to mention a confession. Defense counsel rightly argued that Wakshul’s report is significant because it affirmatively establishes that Jamal never confessed. It is palpably unfair to characterize the evidence as indicating only an omission.
Furthermore, the Commonwealth simply ignores the fact that Wakshul again disavowed that a confession was made in a second report. Wakshul, a week after his first report, was asked to provide the interviewer with any additional information pertaining to the case. In response, Wakshul claimed he could think of nothing else, other than what he already provided. What he provided over the course of two interviews, the PCRA record amply reveals, was a vast array of highly detailed, and in many respects, trivial, information. Through it all, this officer, cognitively and emotionally equipped to provide detailed information to investigating detectives, stated that Jamal never admitted to anything.
Yet, the Commonwealth still argues that Wakshul is a favorable witness to the prosecution. Why? Because over two months after the fact, Wakshul told an IAB investigator (not a homicide investigator), for the first time, that Jamal did indeed confess in precisely the fashion described by the two trial witnesses. Omitted completely from the Commonwealth’s submissions, however, is Wakshul’s explanation for withholding this information: he claimed that he had not realized the confession’s "importance" until that moment. No rational juror would find this explanation, especially in view of the two earlier reports, even remotely credible. That the Commonwealth actually takes the position that Wakshul would have enhanced the prosecution’s case is too puzzling to comprehend.
Other distortions of the record further undermine the Commonwealth’s handling of this issue. First, it wrongly asserts that trial witness P.O. Garry Bell "did not report [Jamal’s] confession for several weeks. . . ." (Mem. #1 at 61) Actually, he reported it two months later, not "several weeks" later. Further, unmentioned in the Commonwealth’s submissions is the fact that Bell had given a police interview on December 16, 1982 (a week after the shooting and the purported confession), where he admittedly said nothing about any statement from Jamal. Similarly, hospital security guard Priscilla Durham never transmitted this information to any law enforcement person for three months, and did so only after Officers Bell and Wakshul suspiciously went on record concerning the purported confession after IAB began its investigation into Jamal’s police brutality allegations.
Second, the Commonwealth even implies that Wakshul’s partner, P.O. Stephen Trombetta, heard the confession. (Mem. #1 at 71) This is patently false, as his signed report, prepared within hours of the alleged confession, also affirmatively stated that Jamal had said nothing. Again, the record does not indicate a simple omission; Trombetta’s report affirmatively refutes the prosecution’s "confession" claim. The only way the Commonwealth can substantiate that Trombetta heard the confession, in the face of his police report, is to propagate the absurdity that he, too, did not recognize the "importance" of the confession, and hence did not report it. Third, the Commonwealth acts as if proof existed substantiating Durham’s self-serving claim that she reported the confession to a hospital colleague the following day. In fact, there was no such proof, except for a typewritten document that Durham could not authenticate and that Judge Sabo should never have allowed into evidence.
Finally, the Commonwealth claims that Judge Sabo did not unreasonably deny the defense a brief continuance (even to permit a phone call to Wakshul’s home, where he in fact was at the time) in order to secure his attendance because the defense had "attempted to ambush the prosecution" by keeping secret its intention to call this witness. This contention is misplaced for two reasons. First, the prosecutor surely knew that Wakshul would have been high on any competent criminal defense lawyer’s list of witnesses to call. The notion that the decision to call Wakshul was an "ambush" move absurdly assumes that the prosecutor had no expectation that such a move would be made. Second, the record refutes the claim. The trial record shows that defense counsel was in a state of distress over this lapse in his preparation, and thus pleading with the trial judge to show some understanding. He explained that he was simply overwhelmed by the unexpected task of handling Jamal’s trial: "I was forced to try and remember everything that everybody said and I couldn’t do it." (7/1/82 Tr. 34) Judge Sabo was singularly unmoved, telling Jamal that he and his attorney had "goofed." (7/1/82 Tr. 38)
IV. DEFENSE COUNSEL’S INEFFECTIVENESS IN THE GUILT PHASE
The Commonwealth’s principle contention here is that Jamal "decided his own trial strategy" (Mem. #1 at 68), thus absolving Anthony Jackson of constitutional blame for his deficient representation. Judge Sabo, following the Commonwealth’s lead, denied Jamal’s constitutional ineffective assistance claim with broad-brush findings that Jamal was in "control" over his own case. As shown in Petitioner’s January 20, 2000 Memorandum, the basis in the record for the "Jamal-was-in-control" thesis is nothing more than questions asked of Jackson in the PCRA proceedings. Jackson emphatically and repeatedly rejected even the insinuation that Jamal controlled the manner in which the defense proceeded. (7/27/95 Tr. 76, 139, 140-41) Jackson testified:
Well, let me just tell you this, Mr. Grant, and I am going to try to tell you for the last time. I have been practicing law for a long time. At no time, at no time that I know of I haven't been in control, when I was a lawyer. Those times that I wasn't, I went to the Supreme Court. I told them let me out [of the case]. Then they told me to be a backup counsel. That's when I wasn't in control. I wouldn't do it because I wasn't in control. That's what this whole thing was about.
But for some reason you seem to think Mr. Jamal was in control. Mr. Jamal was in control when he got the Commonwealth to respond to some political thing. When I was the lawyer I was the lawyer, I was doing what I wanted to do. When Mr. Jamal wanted me to do something I said Your Honor, Mr. Jamal wants me to do this. Mr. Jamal is ordering me to do this. If I didn't preface my remark that way, I was in control.
(7/28/95 Tr. 131-32)
The Commonwealth’s contention, like Judge Sabo’s factfindings on this score, simply cannot withstand scrutiny. The Commonwealth places heavy reliance on the supposition that Jamal "personally decided what witnesses would be called on his behalf." (Mem. #1 at 68) Yet, the only citation to the record in support concerns the presentation of character witnesses. Two points deserve mention here. First, the character witnesses added very little to the trial, not because they had little to say about Jamal, but because Pennsylvania’s evidence rules concerning character evidence severely limited the parameters of their testimony. Consequently, each of the character witnesses’ testimony, on direct examination, typically consumed a mere page and a half to two pages in the trial transcripts. The testimony was rendered in rote fashion, with each witness stating perfunctorily that Jamal had a reputation for peaceableness. Thus, to the extent Jamal had any control over this aspect of the case, it mattered little in the overall scheme of the trial.
Second, it means nothing that Jamal decided who to call as character witnesses, even leaving aside the limited nature of their testimony. It is not at all unusual for a client to inform his counsel which character witnesses to proffer. This aspect of a criminal case is often largely left to the defendant.
Significantly, the Commonwealth cannot point to any other parts of the record to support the canard that Jamal dictated which witnesses to call. The reason is plain: Jamal never assumed that sort of control over his case. Moreover, the Commonwealth cannot dispute the following:
Jamal never instructed Jackson not to investigate his case;
Jamal never told Jackson not to interview witnesses;
Jamal never told Jackson not to secure the attendance of favorable witnesses, like Wakshul and Kordansky;
Jamal never told Jackson not to prepare his direct- and cross-examinations in advance;
Jamal never told Jackson to forge ahead in the case without assistance from another lawyer;
Jamal never told Jackson not to seek adequate funding for experts;
Jamal never told Jackson not to consult him about how to proceed against the charges.
The Commonwealth also dwells on the fact that Jamal objected to Jackson’s representation. The source of Jamal’s protestation rested with Judge Sabo’s hasty decision to strip Jamal of his pro se rights. Jamal’s vociferous objections, uttered repeatedly throughout the trial, to this deprivation of his pro se rights and the forcible imposition of Jackson as his counsel in no way dilute Jackson’s independent obligation to meet the minimum threshold requirements of the Sixth and Eighth Amendments to provide adequate assistance to his capital client. For the same reason, the difficulties that existed between Jamal and Jackson, which prevented the free-flow of information between the two, cannot justify otherwise constitutionally deficient performance.
The Commonwealth’s contention that Jackson had "tried approximately twenty capital cases" is simply wrong. Death penalty prosecutions began in Philadelphia in 1978. From 1978 to 1981 (shortly before Jackson was appointed to handle Jamal’s trial), Jackson was employed by a public interest law organization. It would have been, from a practical standpoint, impossible for Jackson to have handled twenty capital trials in three years as a full-time criminal defense practitioner; he surely did not do so while working outside the criminal defense field for that three year period. Not even the Philadelphia court system, which was, at the time of this trial, notorious for appointing capital cases to overburdened, ill-trained, and ill-equipped private attorneys, would have permitted such a compressed representation of capital defendants.
The Commonwealth further asserts that Jackson "conducted thorough and intensive trial preparation for a period of five months . . . ." (Mem. #1 at 68) This contention, which also formed a pillar to Judge Sabo’s factfinding, is also unsupported by the record, and the Commonwealth nowhere endeavors to cite any part of the record in support. In fact, Jackson explained that, during the first five months he was handling Jamal’s case, "there was very little time to do anything else but to file all of these motions and to argue the motions themselves." (7/31/95 Tr. 92) Significantly, and this appears nowhere in the Commonwealth’s submissions or in Judge Sabo’s factfinding, Jackson admitted that he was in over his head on April 29, 1982, just a month away from pretrial hearings and then the start of trial. Although quoted in Petitioner’s January 20th Memorandum, Jackson’s desperate cry for help bears repeating here:
[T]here is a problem in organizing the materials that I have before me, as well as preparing the appropriate research . . . . There is a great deal of work to be done, a great deal of information to be developed, and I have some reservations as to whether or not I can properly be prepared to go to trial within the next three weeks, or three to four weeks. . . . I have reams and reams of material to go through . . . . And that’s my problem. Physically, your Honor, I can do only so much. As your Honor well knows, I do have other trials. . . . I am in the process of reducing my trial load, your Honor, to allow me to prepare effectively for this matter. But there are some matters that are still outstanding.
(4/29/82 Tr. 6-9)(emphasis added)
Jackson’s lack of preparation shines through the minutes of the trial proceedings. Exemplifying his ill-preparedness is his inexcusable failure to arrange for Wakshul’s (and Trombetta’s) attendance at the trial. Any minimally prepared lawyer would have made Wakshul’s (and Trombetta’s) attendance priority number one, as his testimony was genuinely compelling for the defense. Moreover, it is axiomatic in criminal defense practice that evidence of an inculpatory statement by a client, particularly one as outrageous as here, must be answered forcefully. Another illustration of Jackson’s serendipitous approach to Jamal’s defense is his failure to ensure that witnesses Kordansky and Jones were fully prepared to testify in accordance with their pretrial statements. With these two witnesses backing up witness Hightower, along with an effective impeachment of Chobert, a jury would have had serious question about the prosecution’s theory that only two civilians were at the crime scene. Yet, Jackson never subpoenaed Kordansky, which he explained was the product of being overwhelmed (which was the exact same reason he gave for failing to bring in Wakshul); and he never talked with Jones before putting her on the witness stand. These lapses are simply brushed aside in the Commonwealth’s submissions, just as they were by Judge Sabo in his factfindings. But they speak volumes about Jackson’s utter lack of preparation and commitment to the case.
Finally, as to the issue of resources, Jackson’s failure to secure a pathologist illustrates the sort of prejudice Jamal suffered. As Petitioner’s submissions show, a defense pathologist would have been able prove that Jamal could not likely have been shot by Officer Faulkner in the manner theorized by the prosecution (thus heightening the force of the defense’s counter-explanation that Jamal was shot as he approached Officer Faulkner, with the latter elevated on the curb, firing downward). The Commonwealth, with remarkable bravado, now contends that the "state presented no ‘upward trajectory’ testimony." (Mem. #1 at 73) This contention, which is carefully worded, is designed to suggest that the prosecution at trial never theorized that Faulkner shot Jamal as the former was falling to the ground. It is a fact that no witness actually saw Faulkner shoot Jamal; thus, in a literal sense, the prosecution did not provide "‘upward trajectory’ testimony." But it did present Cynthia White, whose account strongly implied that Faulkner successfully reached for his gun as he was falling and managed to get off a shot. The trial prosecutor used White’s testimony to argue the flawed "upward trajectory" theory.
It is now clear that such a theory is scientifically unsupportable, as Dr. John Hayes explained in his testimony. The Commonwealth, through all the verbiage, does not actually contest this fact. With no viable prosecution theory as to how Jamal was shot by Officer Faulkner, and with none of the eyewitnesses able to account for this fact (which, in itself, is significant, given the Commonwealth’s suggestion that these witnesses had such terrific vantage points in which to view the events), the jury would have been far more amenable to the defense theory that Jamal was actually shot before the officer was shot, and the officer’s act of discharging his gun may have prompted the actual shooter, described as short, heavy-set and adorning an Afro hairstyle, to commit the crime.
V. THE COMMONWEALTH’S OPPOSITION TO PETITIONER’S BATSON CLAIM IS REPLETE WITH MISREPRESENTATIONS
At page 118 of Memorandum #1, the Commonwealth asserts that Petitioner’s "statistics" showing a prima facie case were "simply invented." In fact, the "statistics" that bear upon Petitioner’s prima facie Batson claim derive from the Commonwealth’s own representations (via an affidavit submitted by the trial prosecutor) and a stipulation by the lead PCRA prosecutor. Thus, the accusation that the data were "simply invented" is patently false.
As the Petition alleges at ¶¶465-470, based upon data in the record, the trial prosecutor was 5.13 times more likely to peremptorily strike a Black in the eligible jury pool than other persons in the pool in this case, and Black jury pool members faced odds of being peremptorily struck that were 16.47 times greater than for other jury pool members. Nearly 86% of the jurors acceptable to the trial prosecutor were white, while 73.33% of the jurors unacceptable to the trial prosecutor were Black. In addition, the eleven peremptory strikes the trial prosecutor exercised against Black jurors constituted 73.33% of the trial prosecutor total peremptory challenges, as compared to four strikes (or 26.67%) against white jurors. These are not numbers that were invented, but are derived from the cold record itself.
As for the suggestion that Petitioner’s Batson claim is procedurally defaulted because he failed to introduce evidence at the PCRA proceedings, this contention fails to recognize that Jamal was never permitted to get past the prima facie aspects of Batson. Specifically, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in 1989 (and in 1997), erroneously concluded that Jamal could not establish a prima facie case under Batson. Consequently, Jamal sought to show, at the PCRA proceedings that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s 1989 ruling was predicated on an erroneous understanding of the number of Blacks who were struck. Jamal established that eleven, not eight (as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrongly believed), Blacks were peremptorily struck. Jamal then argued that a prima facie case under Batson had been established. That contention was again rejected, both by Judge Sabo and by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The secondary and tertiary issues under Batson – i.e., race-neutral explanation and pretext – never ripened as live issues by virtue of the PCRA court’s erroneous rejection, as a matter of law, of the prima facie challenge.
Petitioner’s habeas Petition sets forth facts from which two arguments are made: first, a prima facie case has, in fact, been made (which is a legal issue capable of decision from data contained in the current record); and second, whatever race-neutral explanations are proffered by the Commonwealth, Jamal is capable, through the introduction of additional evidence (partly statistical, partly demonstrative, and partly testimonial), of establishing that such explanations are pretextual. No evidence dealing with the "pretext" issue was proffered at the PCRA proceedings, not because of a lapse by Jamal, but because the "pretext" issue never ripened into a live issue in the face of the erroneous conclusion that Jamal could not establish a prima facie case. Accordingly, the Commonwealth’s reliance on Walker v. Vaughn, 53 F.3d 609 (3d Cir. 1995), and Wise v. Fulcomer, 958 F.2d 30 (3d Cir. 1992), is totally misplaced. Neither of these decisions confronts the situation where a PCRA litigant was deemed to have failed to make out a prima facie Batson challenge, thereby mooting the issue of race-neutrality and pretext. Notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s contention to the contrary, Jamal has not procedurally defaulted on the Batson claim.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth herein and in all previous filings with this Court, Jamal’s petition for habeas corpus relief must be granted and a new trial ordered.
DATED this 24th day of March, 2000
________________________________
October 31, 1999—Revolutionary Worker—Page 7
NOVEMBER 1999: LEONARD PELTIER FREEDOM MONTH
Lecnard Peltier has spent 23 hard years in US. prisons—targeted, framed and sen- tenced by the U.S.government. His spirit is unbroken, but his health has worsened He suffersfivm a painfull jaw condition, from diabetes, a heart condition and from the denial of medical treatment. The Parole Commission fried to slam the door on Leonard's case: In 1993 they denied him parole and ruled that his case would not be heard again for 15 years—in 2008!
This injustice is intolerable—and the demand for his freedom is growing.
November 1999 is Leonard Pettier Freedom Month with actions everyday in Washington, DC. The opening event on November 1 will bring together veteran fighters of the Wounded Knee occupation and Leonard Peltier & family with Peltier supporters.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Leonard Peltier was born on Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota in 1944. His family came from the Anishinabe (Chippewa) and Lakota (Sioux) peoples. He says, “During harvest season, . . .my whole family—grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children—would migrate from Turtle Mountain to the Red River Valley to work in the potato fields.”
Native people were supposed to be defeated—and disappearing. But the strug- gle continued. “Traditionalists” pulled back into distant rural pockets to keep their ways alive. Other Native people drifted into urban ghettos where they mingled with proletarians of other nationalities. In the 1960s, Black people started shak- ing the United States with powerful rebel- lions. A new generation of Indian youth woke up and formed the American Indian Movement (AIM). Like the Black Panther Party, they worked day and night to bring hot, radical, anti-system politics to the masses. Urban Indian radicals linked up with the rez youth and whole communities Peitier became a of "traditionalist" people. Leonard Peltier became a leading activist in that radical new generation. Leonard told the RW about the condi- tions that created AIM: “Poverty, discrimi- nation. The injustices that people were receiving in the courtrooms. The violations of the Indian treaties made between two sovereign nations—the United States gov- ernment and Indian nations. The bigotry that exists around Indian territories. The unemployment which brings in the high alcoholism rate and disease rate of the reservations. In them days, it was just still not illegal to kill an Indian. If you killed an Indian, you’d be very unfortunate if you got probation—most of them were released im- mediately. The FBI’s CO1NTELPRO (Counter In- telligence Program) targeted leading ac- tivists of AIM. One FBI document recom- mended that “local police put leaders under close scrutiny, and arrest them on every possible charge until they could no longer make bail.”
Peltier was attacked in a res- taurant by two off-duty cops, beaten and charged with attempted murder.
One cop said his job was “catching a big one for the FBI.”
Wounded Knee 2 and the Need for Armed Self-Defense
On the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations in South Dakota, AIM led hundreds, in February 1973, to take over the buildings at Wounded Knee. They were blockaded by federal forces. The firefights lasted over two months and brought AIM’s struggle worldwide attention. During the 36 months after Wounded Knee, more than 60 AIM supporters died violently on or near the Pine Ridge reserva- tion. “The only way to deal with the Indian problem in South Dakota,” said William Janklow, then South Dakota deputy attor- ney general, “is to put a gun to American Indian Movement leaders’ heads and pull the trigger.” The FBI arrested 562 AIM supporters for participating in Wounded Knee. 600 people were charged with sup- porting the defenders. With many of Pine Ridge’s core activists underground, in jail or dead—elders asked AIM members to organize self-defense camps to protect the people. In 1975, the Northwest AIM group, including Leonard Peltier, set up a defensive camp. A 1975 FBI memo says: “There are pockets of In- dian population that consist almost ex- clusively of American Indian Movement (AIM) and their supporters on the Reserva- tion. It is significant that in some of these AIM centers the residents have built bunkers which would literally require military assault forces if it were necessary to overcome resistance emanating from the bunker.”
The Shootout at Oglala
On July 26, combat-armed police started massing near Oglala village—”GOONs” of the local reservation government, BIA police, state troopers, U.S. Marshals, and FBI SWAT teams. The Indians, including Leonard Peltier, prepared to defend them- selves. Amund noon on July 26, two FBI agents drove straight for the AIM camp. It is not clear how the shooting started. The agents, Coler and Williams, got out of their car and began firing. Members of the AIM camp fired back. Coler and Williams called for reinforcements. It was the prearranged signal for all-out federal assault. Three Indian youth shot out the tires of the first reinforcements. The whole police assault froze. Coler and Wil- liams were caught in their own trap. AIM rifles kept the feds at bay all after- noon—as the people of the camp, including Peltier, slipped away. After the firing stopped, the Feds stormed in. Their point- men, Coler and Williams, lay dead. An In- dian, Joe Stuntz Killsright, was also dead. Everyone else escaped. The authorities unleashed the largest manhunt in FBI history, with combat gear, grenade launchers, helicopters, and track- ing dogs. For three months, this “task force” ran amok—storming into homes and holding people at gunpoint. Grand juries were convened. The media spread FBI lies about “AIM terrorism.” During this hysteria, the authorities charged three AIM members-Leonard Peltier, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler- with killing the two FBI agents.
The Making of a Railroad
Peltier escaped to Canada, where he con- tinued to organize. Butler and Robideau were tried and found “not guilty” in July 1976. The all-white jury was shocked to hear of the government terrorism on Pine Ridge. After this, a 1976 FBI memo called for directing “full prosecutive weight of the federal government.. .against Leonard Pel- tier.” Peltier was captured and illegally smuggled back into the United States by orders of then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The authorities had no evidence linking Peltier to the killing of the FBI agents. So they manufactured it. And the trial judge stopped the defense from exposing the prosecution lies. A mentally ill Indian woman, Myrtle Poor Bear, was pressured by the authorities to make statements implicating Peltier. In fact, she had not witnessed anything. At Peltier’s trial, an FBI agent swore that he had personally seen Peltier near the two dead agents. FBI lab experts claimed a shell casing at the scene came from Leonaid Peltier’s AR-iS rifle. These were deliberate lies. The Court of Appeals later wrote: “[the prosecution’s] theory, accepted by the jury and the judge, was that Peltier killed the two FBI agents at point blank range.” Leonard Peltier was convicted of two counts of first degree murder on April 18, 1977. Judge Benson ruled that Leonard should serve two life sentences consecu- tively. It was a complete railroad.
The Government Case Unravels -The Railroad Continues
"As warriors of our nation we must show our people the spirit
of Crazy Horse so they may rise off their knees... Raise up with me and resist the terrorist attacks of genocide against our nation.’”
Leonard Peltier from prison, 1978
In 1979, the FBI tried to assassinate Pel- tier in prison. Secret documents surfaced, proving that the FBI manufactured the “evidence” against Peltier. A 1975 memo to the FBI director revealed that the firing pm of the AR-15 rifle connected to Peltier had not matched any shell casing supposed- ly found at the scene. By the late 1980s, Prosecutor Lynn Crooks admitted that the government did not know who shot the FBI agents. Crooks said, “We did not have any direct evidence that one individual as opposed to another pulled the trigger.” On October 5, 1987 the Supreme Court refused to review the case. In 1993 the federal courts denied Peltier’s appeal. They argued that even if there’s no evidence of “close-up killing,” Peltier was guilty of “long-range aiding and abetting.” Leonard told the RW, “The government has ad- mitted in two courts of law at the Appellate Court level that they don’t know who killed the agents.... And now the government on their most recent decision is claiming that I am an ‘aider and abettor.’ Basically, that was their theory—I was aider and abettor at 15 to 20 feet or 200 yards, about two foot- ball fields away. They don’t know where I aided and abetted—but I was on the reser- vation.” In other words, the federal court says Peltier must spend life in prison for being present as the AIM encampment defended itself. The system wants someone punished for the armed resistance at Oglala. Leonard Peltier has become a symbol— for millions—of Native resistance and U.S. government injustice. November 1999 is Leonard Peltier Free- dom Month. Spread the word. Take a stand.
Resources:
Leonard Peltier Freedom Coalition, D.C. 202-857-1469
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Kansas, 785-842-5774; web site: members.xoom.com/freepeltier
Leonard Peltier’s new book Prison Writings:
My Life Is My Sundance
has recently been published.
RW Online at http://www.rwor.org/ for background and updates on Leonard Peltier
_________________________________________________________________
The Tulsa Massacre of 1921
Synopsis of RCP RW Feb. 20,00 P18-19 Article
'Tulsa Tribune' advertised: 'To Lynch Negro Tonight' in Headline
after Black Shoeshine boy accidentally stepped on a white elevator
operator's foot when she tried to crush him inbetween the doors of
the elevator as he was trying to get to the Filthy 'nigger' toilet
on the Second Floor.
Mutilated Black "Corpses were stacked like cordwood on street corners,
photograped for keepsakes. Corpses piled in the backs of wagons,
dump trucks, and along railroad sidings. Corpses buried in an
underground tunnel downtown, where one caller said
123 blacks had been clubbed to death. Corpses left to rot
for days in a park under the blistering Oklahoma sun.
Corpses dumped in the Arkansas River and allowed to float away."
Black bodies were displayed as 'Trophys' in prominant locations.
Women and Children had been cut up with axes, blinded, dragged
behind vehicles, burned, etc. while still alive.
The best Black surgeon in the country was murdered by police
after he sought protection with them.
Mass Graves at three sites just found may be looked at this Summer.
All records have been removed from the 'Tulsa Tribune'.
Death Squads of 25,000+ whites killed all blacks could get at with
the first world use of Aerial Firebombs and Explosives (We saw a
great shadow in the sky and upon a second look, we saw that this cloud
was a great mass of fast approaching aeroplanes.) along with
strafing, and National Guard use of Machine Guns, bayonets, etc.
on the ground.
More than Thirty-Five blocks were burned to the ground.
Homes were entered and their occupants slaughtered where they w
ere found.
The Police told the whites to go out and shoot any
'nigger' they saw 'and the law'll be behind you.'
No white has ever been prosecuted.
Kerosene was used by Law Enforcement to burn down the
finest black homes.
1,200+ homes, hotels and businesses were destroyed.
For months, black people would see white people on Tulsa's
downtown streets wearing clothing and jewelry stolen during
the pogrom.
Government prevented rebuilding and Insurance Companies
refused any Compensation.
Until the last few years all US History Books and available accounts
only listed a total of 36 dead and little else about the Massacre.
There are now Socialist sources of information available in the
US if researched.
www.pww.org Feb.19,00 P10-11 supplied some material.
Such as the Kapitalists of Tulsa wanted the Black land for expansion
and also wanted to prevent the Meatpackers from organizing.
_________________________________________________________________
