Free Leonard Peltier
The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (LPDC) is asking
for all people of conscience to stand together and help
promote the upcoming events that have been planned to help
free wrongly imprisoned Native American activist Leonard
Peltier.
To help quicken the Justice Department's decision for executive clemency for Leonard Peltier, and in the historic significance and spirit of the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, there has been a civil disobedience campaign organized by the National Committee for Nonviolent Civil Disobedience to Free Leonard Peltier. This action will begin on March 20, 1996, in Washington, D.C., as well as other locations around the country.
The LPDC is also organizing actions to take place on February 6, 1996, which marks the twentieth anniversary of Leonard Peltier's capture in Canada. Thus beginning his long and unjust incarceration.
Please make the time to network and advertise this information for the sake of justice and one man's freedom, because Leonard's time is running out. We are hoping that everyone will be able to attend these events either in D.C. or act locally in solidarity.
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
Box 583
Lawrence, Kansas 66044
(913) 842-5774
Prisoner request
I am an inmate over here in California, in Pelican State
prison. A friend of mine went home. But he used to receive
your weekly newspaper and the magazine (Perspectiva Mundial)
and he gave me your address before he left because he knew I
enjoyed your weekly newspaper and magazine. Right now,
unfortunately, I am out of funds and I was wondering if you
could give me a complimentary subscription.
A prisoner
Crescent City, California
S. Korea repression
The Central Committee of the National Democratic Front
of South Korea (NDFSK) has the honor to pay our high respect
and heartfelt greetings to you who are struggling for world
peace, human rights, and social justice.
We, Koreans, have suffered 50 years of national division by the foreign forces, however, U.S. colonialist policy and the pro-American fascist regime remain as the main obstacles to the cause of our national reunification.
With the appearance of the Kim Young Sam civilian dictatorial regime, south Korean people's social sufferings and disasters have reached the extreme.
The fascist clique uses the notorious National Security Law (NSL) to oppress not only the demand of workers and peasants for democracy and the right of existence, but also the people's movement for independent and peaceful reunification.
In four months or less after its appearance, the Kim Young Sam clique arrested more than 1,000 innocent members of the democratic movement's organizations, fabricated by cruel tortures and punished over 680 of them on charges of violating the NSL.
In only 10 months of the first year after Kim Young Sam came into power advocating "civilian" politics, more than 14,500 patriotic people were punished unjustly.
The percentage of those who were imprisoned on charges of violation of the NSL rapidly increased from 32 percent at the end of the previous military regime to 50 percent last year. This proves that the violations of human rights are being aggravated to the extreme under the Kim Young Sam regime. Kim Young Sam has declared shamelessly at every opportunity that there are not any political prisoners in S. Korea, but in reality there are nearly 500 prisoners of conscience in south Korean prisons, being tortured brutally.
The Kim Young Sam clique has inflicted judicial punishment upon a religious leader Mr. An Ho-Sang, aged over 90, and his company, who had worshipped at the tomb of the founding father of the nation in Pyongyang out of a pure religious belief.
The so-called civilian regime has imprisoned recently Mrs. Park Yong-Gil, aged 76, the wife of the late Rev. Moon Ik-Whan, guilty of visiting Pyongyang purely out of her desire for reunification.
We south Korean people are struggling with difficulty for independence, democracy, and reunification. We call upon the world conscience to send disinterested support and firm solidarity to the south Korean people who are struggling for the abolition of the NSL and release of all prisoners of conscience, the innocent victims of the law.
Central Committee,
National Democratic Front of South Korea
Seoul, South Korea
`Socialism on Trial'
In your December 4, 1995, issue, you have finally
published an article which is simple, easy to understand,
back to the basics, and the bottom line of Socialism. The
article I refer to is " `Socialism on Trial' on the eve of
World War II" by James P. Cannon. This is what defines a
Socialist. What does not define a Socialist are the "one
issue" followers who only see and promote their "one issue"
and call themselves Socialists.
Capitalists are not afraid of these single issues, which are debated by both the Democratic and Republican parties who advocate on both sides of the issue. What capitalists are afraid of is the Socialism of James P. Cannon, of Che Guevara, of Fidel Castro, of Karl Marx, and of many others who have gone before us.
I quote from the article: "We visualize a social order that would be based on the common ownership of the means of production, the elimination of private profit in the means of production, the abolition of the wage system, the abolition of the division of society into classes... We have set as our aim the establishment of a workers' and farmers' government, in place of the existing government which we term a capitalist government..."
Thank you for your refreshing article.
Jack Chase
Fairlawn, Ohio
Mark Curtis victory
Congratulations on the parole of Mark Curtis. This
victory advances the position of all victims of political
frame-ups. By shattering the illusion that the government is
immovable and its institutions insurmountable, Mark's parole
opens room in the class to push for the release of other
victims of political incarceration including Peltier and Abu-
Jamal. Good Luck Mark, welcome back!
K.C. Ellis
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