VOICE OF DETROIT: The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

People's Task Force members, including families of wrongfully convicted prisoners, testified at City Council hearing May 11, 2009; Task Force President Marilyn Jordan is second from right in red; Task Force Vice-President Kevin Carey is at left

Rally Fri. June 17 8 a.m. Frank Murphy Hall, St. Antoine and Gratiot

Demands include:

• Remove Worthy from crime lab review
• Forensic investigation of lab evidence independent of city and state
• Freedom for wrongfully convicted prisoners with no time limits
• DPD, MSP, prosecutors, corrupt lab staff be disciplined and charged

Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy at City Council hearing May 11, 2009; former Group Executive for Public Safety Saul Green is at right

New revelation: Prosecutor’s office destroyed all pre-1995 files in violation of state law

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – The Detroit People’s Task Force to Free the Wrongfully Convicted believes that not only the Detroit Police, but Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy and the state police are liable for crimes related to falsification and destruction of forensic evidence that go far beyond the recent expose of materials left behind at the shuttered Detroit police crime lab.

In a telling comment on the state of affairs in Detroit, the portion of the police crime lab which studied current cases was located in the closed Stephen Foster Elementary School; adjudicated evidence is kept at police HQ

The lab was completely closed in 2008 after a forensic audit of its firearms and ballistics testing unit found a 10 percent error rate. The Michigan State Police Crime Lab found that Detroit firearms technicians, all of whom were Detroit police officers, bordered on “misconduct” when they produced false lab results.

“The task force has been fighting for three years for an independent audit into the investigations of adjudicated cases of wrongful convictions,” the group said in a release. “With the recent revelations of yet more scandals involving the Detroit Police and the Prosecutor as it concerns these cases, enough is enough.”

This statue outside the Frank Murphy Hall of (In)Justice belies the horrors that take place there every day

The Task Force includes prisoners, their families and advocates. The lives of thousands of men and women currently behind bars, many for decades, are at stake, they say. 

 “We are demanding a federal investigation,” Task Force Vice-President Kevin Carey said. “We also want Prosecutor Kym Worthy to be removed from handling the crime lab review because of conflict of interest, that she return the $2.7 million she obtained from the city for it, that prisoners wrongfully convicted be set free, and that the police, the prosecutor and crime lab staff who falsified evidence be disciplined and charged.”

Roberto Guzman, Task Force paralegal

Task Force President Marilyn Jordan is the mother of prisoner Kelly Nobles, who says ballistics evidence in his case was falsified. Task Force paralegal Roberto Guzman said Worthy refused to review his case, saying it fell a few months short of the 2003-2008 limit she placed on cases subject to review.

“We are not going anywhere until our demands are met,” Jordan asserted. “When Worthy asked for the money from the city, she said nothing about time limits, and she has no jurisdiction anyway. Now she suddenly says it is impossible to review 31,000 cases, when she hasn’t even reviewed all the original 147 cases specified by the audit.”

The City Council passed a resolution granting funds to Worthy in Feb. 2010, but nothing in the resolution itself specifies a time limit on cases reviewed.  (Click on CC lab resolution, MOU   to read resolution.)

Worthy has refused to review Kelly Nobles case because he was incarcerated (for life) in 2002

An exhibit entitled “Forensic Evidence Review Unit” which did include that time limit was attached to a three-page Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by Worthy, the city’s executive staff, and on behalf of the Council.

“I want members of the City Council to be held accountable as well,” Jordan said.  Task Force members say the Council should have exercised due diligence prior to voting on the matter, as well as recognizing that Worthy had no jurisdiction.

After hearing testimony from the People’s Task Force, the previous Detroit City Council, chaired by President Pro-Tem Monica Conyers during Pres. Maryann Mahaffey’s illness, voted unanimously on May 11, 2009 for a federal investigation of the lab, instead of a review conducted by Worthy. Council member JoAnn Watson made the motion.

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson in Feb. 2009

Meanwhile, Worthy’s office recently revealed that a massive amount of their own records, essential to the continued appeal of prisoners’ cases, have been destroyed.

Edward Sanders with author, who was visiting him at Mound Road before he was transferred

In February, VOD made a Freedom of Information Act request for the prosecutor’s file on Edward Sanders, incarcerated since 1975.

“It appears the file you requested has long since been destroyed in a routine purge of files,” said FOIA officer Barbara Brown in a letter in response. “An administrative decision was made to destroy all pre-1995 files, as a remedy to a shortage of shelf space for our office as the archives.” (Click on Worthy files before 95  to read letter.)

Sanders, who was sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile at 17, has been fighting to re-open his case for the 36 years he has been imprisoned. He contends among other matters that shell casings involved in his case, and the condition of the gun, will show that the shooting, committed by a man riding in his car, was unintentional.

According to the State of Michigan’s General Retention Schedule #19 for prosecuting attorneys, files in capital cases (any crime with a life sentence) must be retained “until final disposition of the case plus 50 years, or the felon dies, whichever is sooner.”

(Click on http://www.michigan.gov/documents/hal/mhc_rm_gs19_195723_7.pdf to read document.)

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s spokesperson, Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller, said the destruction of files did not happen under Worthy’s administration.

“Since she has been the elected prosecutor we do not destroy any capital felony files,” Miller said. “In fact, we keep indefinitely all homicide cases, and any cases in our Special Victim’s Unit (which handles  child abuse, domestic violence , criminal sexual conduct and homicides).  Our appellate division keeps all homicide cases indefinitely as well under the file retention policy.”

(Further comments from Miller in response to this article are included in an addendum at its conclusion.) 

Many of the prisoners who are part of the People’s Task Force were also incarcerated prior to 1995, for life terms.

Darryl Dulin-Bey

Darryl Dulin-Bey, incarcerated in 1988 for life, says the gun produced at his trial was not the gun used in the killing involved, and that he did not shoot either gun. He says the police and prosecutor were fully aware of this.

“During my trial, there was no actual murder weapon presented but there was an unrelated 9 mm handgun and shotgun shells presented, also bullets that were on display on the prosecutor’s table in front of my jury and the and the prosecutor presented and waved this evidence like a flag,” Dulin-Bey wrote.

Michael Harris, a founding member of the People’s Task Force, has been in prison since 1983 and says the Michigan State Police (MSP) crime lab falsified evidence in his case, as well as many other cases.

Michael Harris

“My attorney helped to expose two Michigan State Police DNA experts in 2004, Lynn Helton and Charles Barna, who fabricated evidence against me in Washtenaw County,” Harris said in a letter. “They used my blood samples to wrongly contaminate crime scene evidence and frame me for murders.”

In the wake of daily media reports that evidence was left behind after the crime lab building closed, Worthy has turned over the investigation to the Michigan State Police. She is also using the MSP labs to review crime lab evidence as part of a “Forensic Integrity Unit” she set up after the Detroit crime lab closed.

Harris called instead for an independent forensic investigation of both the Detroit and Michigan crime labs. He encouraged people to attend the June 17 rally in a recent letter from Kinross Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, where both he and Sanders are incarcerated.  

Part of Kinross Prison, located in Kincheloe in the Upper Peninsula

“Kym Worthy [must be] removed from the Detroit police crime lab investigation on the grounds of a conflict of interest,” he said. “Also, all Detroit crime lab cases must be removed from the jurisdiction of the Michigan State Police crime labs. The Detroit Police Crime Lab has falsified ballistics test results .  .  .  . the Michigan crime labs were exposed for forging DNA records.”

Guzman said the case of Johnnie Henderson, grandson of Essie Henderson, also a member of the Task Force, is one of the most glaring examples of prosecutorial atrocities.

Johnnie Henderson

“The court transcripts showed the ballistics and physical evidence did not match,” he said. “They didn’t find any bullet in the deceased victim, claiming it had somehow slipped out. This is one of the cases Worthy is trying to cleanse because Henderson’s defense attorney also asserted that it was likely the fatal bullet came from a police officer’s gun.”

Larry Porter, now 59, was sent to prison in 1989 and is also a founding member of the People’s Task Force. 

Larry Porter

“Ms. Worthy, you haven’t shown one ounce of any genuine concern for those of us who are wrongfully convicted, let alone any compassion for our families and loved ones,” said Porter, Harris, Dulin-Bey, and Nobles in an open letter in 2008. “That comprehensive program you purportedly designed to address the failures of the Detroit Police crime lab has virtually fizzled out .  .  . simply because none of the wrongfully convicted have been set free yet!”

Worthy recently said that it is “impossible” to review even the 31,000 cases adjudicated between 2003-08 with her current staff, including that financed by the city.

Former MGM Grand Casino, slated to be new police HQ with MSP crime lab

In addition to giving Worthy $2.7 million, the current  City Council voted in July, 2010 to issue up to $100 million in general obligation bonds to finance the purchase and renovation of the former MGM Grand Casino in downtown Detroit into a new Detroit police headquarters and Michigan State Police crime lab.

The bonds are guaranteed by the city’s revenue-sharing funds from the state, which are in line to be cut under Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s budget.

“We don’t want to hear her sob stories now,” Guzman said.

Asst. Pros. Robert Moran, speaking during Kilpatrick court hearing, heads Worthy's crime lab investigative unit; Task Force members say Worthy should focus on freeing the wrongfully convicted rather than garnering publicity for her prosecution of Kilpatrick

“Kym Worthy knew going into this that the cases were in the thousands,” he continued. Her fingerpointing is nothing more than a sinister effort to throw the scent off her staff, which knowingly prosecuted many of these cases with falsified forensics evidence, to say nothing of the convictions in which prosecutors also deliberately concealed exculpatory forensics evidence at trial. Worthy herself should have invited a federal probe as we have repeatedly insisted since the lab debacle first exploded in 2008.”

The Detroit Free Press itself is calling for a federal investigation. (Click on    http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011105290502 to read article.)

The article quotes David A. Moran, co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, who said his office has been requesting evidence from the lab for years through the FOIA, to no avail.

Attorney David Moran (r) with Marvin Reed, freed through U-M's Innocence Project

“I wouldn’t be surprised, if in FOIA requests where we got a response saying, ‘Sorry, it’s gone,’ the evidence is sitting in that crime lab,” Moran told the Freep. He added, “A federal investigation is really called for here. … Everyone had been led to believe that the crime lab scandal had been contained, and that it was in the hands of police, but that wasn’t done.”

However, said the Freep, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade refused comment on such an investigation, saying only, “We are looking into the situation.”

In fact, the National Academy of Sciences has called for all crime labs to be separated completely from any law enforcement agency, including the Department of Justice.

“Forensic scientists who sit administratively in law enforcement agencies or prosecutor’s offices, or who are hired by these units, are subject to a general risk of bias,” the Feb. 18, 2009 NAS report said. “The potential for conflicts of interest between the needs of law enforcement and the broader needs of forensic science are too great.”

Read release on NAS study of forensics practices, published in Feb. 2009, with link to full report, at http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12589

Read release on NAS study of forensics practices, published in Feb. 2009, with link to full report, at http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12589.

The report called for the creation of an independent National Institute of Forensics Sciences, which would conduct scientific research, set national standards, and certify, regulate, enforce and standardize forensic testing and testimony.

Below is a response from Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller on behalf of Kym Worthy to issues raised in this story, along with a reply from the Task Force’s Roberto Guzman.

RESPONSE FROM APA MARIA MILLER, COMMUNICATIONS CHIEF FOR PROSECUTOR KYM WORTHY

Here is some background about the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) that was formed in 2010.

The unit consists of CIU Chief, Robert Moran, CIU Director APA Patrick Muscat and three other APAs assigned to the unit.  The WCPO has been reviewing these cases with SADO [the State Appellate Defenders Office) since 2008.  The Michigan State Police does all of the re-testing of firearm evidence.  Continue reading →

Joyce Moore, Charter Commissioner 93-97

June 11, 2011

(VOD ed. note: Many Detroiters do not realize that they have the final say so on the draft Charter recently produced by the Charter Revision Commission. As former Charter Commissioner Joyce Moore says, we CAN and SHOULD vote NO!  VOD will publish an additional analysis of other problems with the proposed Charter revision.)

SUBJECT:   CHARTER AND DISTRICTS

As you know crucial issues are coming before the voters in this upcoming November election.  These issues could become the demise of our city unless we continue to educate ourselves, our voters and mobilize now.

AFSCME Co. 25 President Al Garrett speaks against charter changes as others line up to call for a NO vote on revision, at Charter meeting Aug. 24, 2010

One of the greatest threats to the existence of Detroit is the revision of our City Charter which was not to be revised until 2018 and in a gubernatorial election (Section 9-403.)

The Detroit City Charter is our Constitution as it outlines the city council’s and the mayor’s responsibility and authority to the people.  It also determines the ownership of our valuable assets, such as Belle Isle, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department, the Public Lighting Department, Cobo Hall and the Zoo to name a few.

Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos bought prime downtown land for his HQ for $1 a block

The main issue of this Charter Revision is Districts.  The proposal for Districts was placed on the ballot illegally and was passed in the November 2009 election.   This issue of Districts alone now poses an even greater threat due to the need to draw boundaries. Ultimately, Districts will:

• clear the way to take control of more of our assets, 
• reduce the voting power for all the citizens, 
• consolidate the voting blocks of those who wish to confiscate the most desirable and valuable areas in our city, 
• finalize the concept as far back as 1972 of, a “City within a City”, and 
• the Mayor will be in charge of city services.  The better services will be provided to those districts of choice. 

A clear example of these events is Midtown.  It is one of the choice areas of the City for Districts and is being populated by rewarding people to move into this particular area. 

One of Detroit's impoverished neighborhoods: what will happen to them?

The sad and devastating part is that most of the general public is unaware of the politics that is changing our city, partly because the mainstream media has not provided accurate information to the public. YOU MUST VOTE ‘NO” ON THE CHARTER REVISION IN THE NOVEMBER 2011 ELECTION and  BE PREPARED FOR A RE-COUNT.

 Detroiters cannot afford to sit by and watch others benefit from our struggle.  We must recognize our collective power to protect our votes and rebuild the city to benefit US.

By Joyce Moore – Charter Revision Commissioner (1993-1996) 

AFSCME Local 207 President and DGRS Pension Board Trustee John Riehl

PENSION TRUSTEE REPORT

BY JOHN RIEHL

(VOD ed. note: John Riehl has been a militant, dedicated, honest union leader as President of AFSCME Local 207, representing water and public lighting workers, for many years. He was recently elected by city workers to sit on the Detroit General Retirement System Board.)

Since being elected as a Pension Board Trustee I have learned much about our system and the dynamics of the dangers to our retirement security.

There are politician driven schemes in many states to reduce or eliminate public employee retirement benefits. On a recent 60 Minutes program New Jersey ’s governor was attacking that state’s retirement benefits. An alert reporter did follow up with an important fact that the state had failed to make 13 of the last 16 required contributions to the retirement systems.

Detroit city worker at mass rally in Lansing April 13

Since the start of the current recession there has been an enormous redistribution of wealth in the United States away from the working class. Millions lost jobs, with many today subsisting on part time work or unemployment benefits. Those still working are confronted by employers demanding and imposing pay cuts and reduced health insurance and retirement benefits.

 In Detroit the attacks on public workers are similar. The former mayor Kilpatrick was very active in giving away public jobs to select private contractors. He worked with Feikens and Mercado and the Business Leadership Group (including Dave Bing) by attempting to give away our Detroit Water Department to a regional authority.

He also pushed for investments by Detroit ’s two pension systems in various projects. Some of these investments were failures. There was a surge of “alternate investments” in 2007. Detroit can use the local investment since big business has largely written us off, but some resulted in investment losses. It is important to understand though, that many types of investments lost value during the recession and the credit crash.

Some real estate investments in particular have lost value. Much of our system’s most successful investments now are stocks due to the business economy improving. We regularly have to make decisions on what can be done about problem investments. We have sued to recover investments or reassert control.

Some of these involve the big New York investment banks that collapsed in 2008, others include companies whose stock prices dropped when deceptive practices were exposed. The stimulus actions of the US government and Federal Reserve did help stop further economic collapse, but at the cost of over empowering the largest banks.

These same banks were the cause of recession and now profit from it. 

Since I have been on the Pension Board I have seen great care being put into investment decisions. There are now several new trustees. Recently Lou Hatty was elected as an Employee Representative and Tom Sheehan was elected as the Retiree Representative. Mayor Bing recently installed James Edwards as his Appointed Representative. 

NAACP Pres. Wendell Anthony, Mayor Dave Bing, and Kid Rock (without his usual Confederate flag)

Recently Mayor Bing has been advocating changes in union contracts and the pension plans. The AFSCME contract for one will not be up for renegotiation for a year. Bing had a proposal to suspend next year’s required payments from the city to the retirement systems. We pointed out to him and city council that this was a violation of the employer’s obligation under the state constitution. That idea is now dead. He had been in support of turning our pension systems over to Michigan Employees Retirement System based in Lansing . Hundreds of city workers and retirees came to a special City Council session and lined up to insist that Bing’s giveaway be stopped. He was defeated. 

Recently Bing asked Detroit ’s two retirement systems to lengthen our smoothing period to ten years. Our Pension Board was using a five year “smoothing” to average its valuation of assets. This means that bad years like 08 and 09 are averaged with three other, hopefully better years. This means that we are taking the short term sting out of the extreme fluctuations in the investment markets. We now have installed a seven year corridor modified smoothing period. This reduces the contribution cost to city for the General Retirement System about 11 million next year, but will increase it in future years.

These accounting changes have no impact on benefits. Keep in mind that Detroit ’s financial problems will only get worse now that Governor Snyder is cutting revenue sharing. What would help is if Washington would direct its spending away from wars and the military and towards our states and cities.

EYEWITNESS: Dedon Kamathi Returns from Libya and Reports (radio interview above).

DeDon Kamathi of All-African People's Revolutionary Party

DeDon Kamathi has just returned from a tour of Libya with former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. He is interviewed by Askia Muhammad of The Final Call, on WPFW-FM Radio in Washington D.C. as posted above.

WAR IN LIBYA HAS BEEN U.S. PROJECT ALL ALONG

Click on http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/183967.html  to hear interview with Don DeBar

Don DeBar of WBAIX Radio

American journalist Don DeBar says the Libyan war has been a “U.S. Project” all along.

DeBar told Press TV’s U.S. Desk that there has been an attempt to position the war on Libya “as being not an American military activity but rather one of NATO. However, the majority of the resources are either directly owned by the United States or were financed by the U.S.”

The anti-War activist said the Libyan “operation is being conducted under the direction of the United States.”

DeBar said “the expenditure in the Libyan war can be spent to stimulate the American economy for job development and things that are desperately needed” in America.

Washington has resorted to cutting education and “all kinds of basic safety net programs” all the while “starting wars just about everywhere,” he added.

DeBar said the U.S. is maintaining military bases in over 100 countries. “Yet they’re expanding the money that is going to the military” in the face of all the bad economic data that is coming in.

RS/SM/HJ

Libya says Nato air raids ‘killed 700 civilians’ by end of May 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13611132 

Funeral in Libya of NATO victim

31 May 2011 Last updated at 19:06 ET

The Libyan government says NATO air raids have killed more than 700 civilians since bombing began in March.

Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said more than 4,000 people had been wounded, but gave no evidence to confirm his figures.

NATO has denied killing large numbers of civilians, saying its air strikes are to protect Libyans from Colonel Gaddafi’s forces.

Four powerful explosions were felt in the centre of Tripoli on Tuesday night, Libyan state media reported.

Planes were heard flying over the capital, but it was not possible to determine the targets of the raids.

Speaking at a news conference in Tripoli, Mr Ibrahim accused Nato of killing and injuring hundreds of Libyan citizens.

“Since March 19, and up to May 26, there have been 718 martyrs among civilians and 4,067 wounded – 433 of them seriously,” Mr Ibrahim said.

He said the figures did not include military casualties.

Foreign reporters in Tripoli have not been shown evidence of mass civilian casualties.

Asked why not, Mr Ibrahim said casualties had not been concentrated near the capital but scattered across the country.

He also denied that South African President Jacob Zuma, who met Col Gaddafi in Tripoli on Monday, had discussed an “exit strategy” with the Libyan leader.

“If Gaddafi goes, the security valve will disappear. His departure would be the worst case scenario for Libya,” he told reporters.

Moussa Ibrahim denied that Col Gaddafi had discussed a strategy for his departure

A statement released by Mr Zuma’s office after he returned to Pretoria said Mr Gaddafi would not leave Libya, despite growing international pressure.

“Col Gaddafi called for an end to the bombings to enable a Libyan dialogue,” the statement read.

“He emphasised that he was not prepared to leave his country, despite the difficulties.”

After initially backing NATO’s involvement, Mr Zuma and the African Union have called for a halt to air strikes, arguing that Nato has overstepped its UN mandate to protect civilians.

Both Libyan rebels and Nato have refused to accept a ceasefire until Col Gaddafi agrees to step down.

On Tuesday, Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that Gaddafi’s regime was “finished”, during a visit to the rebel capital Benghazi, in eastern Libya.

“He [Gaddafi] must leave office, he must leave the country,” Mr Frattini told a joint news conference with Ali al-Essawi, the rebels’ foreign affairs chief.

“His aides have left, he has no international support, the G8 leaders reject him, he must go.”

NATO’s “ALTERNATE UNIVERSE” IN LIBYA

The Pentagon and its NATO partners are engaged in one of the most obvious and intensive propaganda ploys in their military operations against Libya since the days leading up to the “Coalition of the Willing” attack on Iraq.

Wayne Madsen

By Wayne MADSEN

(USA) 08.JUN.2011

http://www.mathaba.net/news/libya

Suggestions that the government of Muammar Qaddafi is on its last legs and that life in Tripoli has drawn to a standstill as a result of the NATO bombing campaign are not based on reality, as any unbiased observer who has recently been in Tripoli, has witnessed…

In addition to NATO’s “information war” against Libya, the corporate media press corps gathered in Tripoli, including notorious Pentagon war correspondents for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, have furthered the Pentagon’s and NATO’s propaganda claims by making false reports from the ground in Tripoli.

Publisher of these images from Libyan state TV said Libyan govt. "claimed" they were the bodies of Col. Qaddafi's son and three grandchildren; world media now admits they were killed by NATO bombs

In one report from Tripoli, The Post’s Simon Denyer suggests that the Libyan government was faking some casualties as being the result of NATO air strikes on civilian targets rather than merely from non-combat-related causes. That same meme was echoed by John Burns, who is running up the New York Times’s hotel tab in Tripoli reporting on the same “made-in-the-Pentagon” propaganda line. Having been to El Khadra Hospital in Tripoli, I can attest to the fact that several individuals were injured directly by NATO airstrikes, including many with shrapnel wounds to the legs, arms, and torsos.

Another image of bodies of Qaddafi's family from Libyan State TV

While German Chancellor Angela Merkel was being swooned by President Barack Obama in Washington to commit German military forces to the NATO campaign against Libya, the Deutche Presse-Agentur, the German Press Agency, falsely reported from Tripoli that life in the sprawling city of some 1.3 million peoplehad ground to a halt, that schools were closed, and that stores were shuttered, as Qaddafi’s forces were increasingly coming under pressure, with some units defecting.

My own account from Tripoli is that as of June 6, students of all ages were still in school, stores were open — although some larger food markets had limited hours of operation due to NATO sanctions on goods coming into Libya by air and ship — and that life in Tripoli continued as normal. The NATO sanctions have resulted in massive lines of cars, trucks, and taxis queued up to fill up when petrol stations receive gasoline from land routes from Tunisia or from locally-refined oil.

Cars line up for scarce gas in Tripoli Photo by Wayne Madsen

The NATO sanctions and their effect of the lives of Libyans living in the central government-controlled western region is a form of “collective punishment” designed to weaken the resolve of the western Libyans to support their embattled government. However, the sanctions are having the opposite effect, with even those who may have favored the replacement of the Qaddafi government, now rallying around their government leaders as NATO prepares to usher in a neo-colonial administration. With Italy a member of the NATO coalition, Libyans recall Italian atrocities committed against Libya during Rome’s colonial occupation and Libyans will support Qaddafi against the Italians, French, and British, who, along with the Americans and Canadians, seek to impose a puppet regime in Tripoli.

Western Libyans in contact with their relatives in Benghazi, the eastern city under control of the Interim National Transition Council made up of figures of exiled opposition groups, long-supported by the CIA, Britain’s MI-6, and the French Direction General de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE), recent defectors from Qaddafi’s government, and extremist Wahhabi Salafist elements encourages and supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, report how life has changed under the rebels. Women in cities like Derna, which is under the control of Salafist veterans of the “Al Qaeda” operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, including some released from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are afraid to leave their homes because the Salafists have imposed extremist Islamic codes on women appearing in public without the veil. Under Qaddafi, there were no restrictions on what women or men could wear in public. However, men cannot have beards in their Libyan passport photographs. The possession of Libyan passports bearing photographs of bearded Salafist leaders in the rebel movement indicate they have been issued fake passports by the rebel authorities in Benghazi.

Ali Tarhouni, self-appointed Libyan "finance minister" for "rebels"

Civil servants, including teachers, in the rebel-held east have not been paid after rebel leaders looted the Central Bank of Libya in Benghazi of 900 million Libyan dinars and $500.5 million in U.S. cash. Although the central government in Tripoli would like to help Libyan citizens in the east, there is no way for payments to be transmitted to the idled civil servants, as well as pensioners and those families who received $500 per month under Libya’s oil revenue sharing program. The Libyan rebel “finance minister” Ali Tarhouni is believed to be a longtime CIA asset and it was he who planned the theft of the cash from the safe vault of the Central Bank in Benghazi, carried out with the assistance of a CIA-supplied safecracker from the United Arab Emirates.

A number of Libyan ministers who defected from the government to the rebels were known to be opposed to Qaddafi’s policy of sharing revenue with the Libyan people and were more interested in fattening their own bank accounts and investment portfolios. It is not coincidental, therefore, that one of the first targets of the NATO warplanes was the office in Tripoli responsible for conducting an investigation of fraud of senior government officials. Many of the officials under investigation for fraud and corruption, including senior Qaddafi ministers, are now top officials of the Interim National Transition Council, recognized by France, Italy, Britain, and other NATO countries as the “legitimate” government of Libya. Western nations are already cutting deals with rebel leaders for new oil concessions that will place the interests of Big Oil over those of the Libyan masses. Continue reading →

Banner flown on first anniversary of Aiyana Stanley-Jones' murder by police, May 16, over her former home and prosecutor and police offices, sponsored by JAJC

From the Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee

Cornell Squires and Roland Lawrence of Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee are interviewed by major media in Detroit May 16, 2011

Detroit, 12:00 am, June 12, 2011 – The Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee (JAJC) in association with Fluid Shapes is producing a public service announcement on how police brutality has and is increasingly affecting Black young men. Central to this campaign will be the police killing of 7-year old Aiyana Jones. The 15, 30, 45, and 90 second spots will feature committed and serious advocates who work hard to stop the shooting, maiming, and killing of Black youth by the police.

JAJC has invited Lupe Fiasco, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Chris Brown, Sean Penn, Janet Jackson, Lady Gaga and a few other celebrities which should make for an integrated mix of our varied communities. If you want to be a part of this effort or know someone who should, please email us at: justice4aiyana@hotmail.com.

The public service announcement videos will share how the police killed Aiyana Jones, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, and the numerous others in our community who had no chance to fend for themselves against the powerful and mighty U.S. police agencies that have ties all the way to the Pentagon.

JAJC Chief, Roland Lawrence aka Fige Bornu says, “Righteousness begins with each and every one of us; and no matter how one spins the police killing of mostly young Black men, the fact is that the center will not hold. One day in time, this assault against this particular demographic group, which is young Black youth, will and must be addressed, remedied, and stopped at its core.”

Contact: justice4aiyana@hotmail.com

Click on http://sfbayview.com/2011/justice-for-aiyana-jones-now/ to read story originally published in VOD on JAJC aerial protest commemmorating first anniversary of cop murder of Aiyana Jones. The story has also run in The Final Call.

DEAR COMMUNITY

IF THE NEED FOR THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT WAS OVER THEN HOW COULD THIS BE HAPPENING OVER AND OVER??!! THIS WEEK THEY HAVE MOVED NELI LATSON FROM THE PRIVATELY OWNED PRISON TO
THE STATE PENN.
HIS MOTHER IS DISTRAUGHT. COULDN’T REACH HIM BY PHONE. COULD YOU JUST IMAGINE THE DISTRESS NELI IS GOING THRU!!!!!!!  PLEASE HELP. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AND HELP GET THIS BOY HOME TO HIS MOTHER.

Reginald “Neli” Latson, is a 19 year-old autistic young man, who on the morning of May 24, 2010, sat in the grass outside the local library in Stafford, VA and waited for it to open. Police allege that it was reported that there was a suspicious black male who had a gun. Deputy Calverley then approached Latson and searched him for a gun. No gun was found.  Calverly asked Latson for his name, and Latson refused and tried to walk away as he had committed no crime.

PETITION:http://www.change.org/petitions/pardon-wrongfully-convicted-autistic-youth-neli latson?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition&utm_term=own_wall  

THE HELL BEGAN:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEXVuQKVIjM

FOR FULL  INFO PLEASE VISIT :   http://avoiceforneli.com/
  http://avoiceforneli.com/
PLEASE DO PASS THIS EVERYWHERE!!  PLEASE DO SIGN PETITION AND ENJOIN TO BRING THIS BOY HOME.  WE KNOW WHAT TO DO.

 Governor Bob McDonnel (R) *****HE MAY BE RUNNING FOR PRES IN 2012
Street address:Office of the GovernorPatrick Henry Building, 3rd Floor 1111 East Broad Street Richmond, Virginia 23219 Phone Numbers:(804) 786-2211Fax: (804) 371-6351

MOTHER   LISA ALEXANDER

LEGAL DEFENDER
LISA GREENMAN
202  744 7036
lgreenman@rcn.com

SENT BY
AGNES JOHNSON
aajsyr@yahoo.com

Catherine Ferguson Academy (CFA) is a Detroit Public School. CFA is a JEWEL of DETROIT and it is about to be stolen from our community- we must defend it and defend ourselves.  CFA students are standing on their feet fighting to defend public education, fighting to stop the destruction of programs in all of our schools through class size increases and elimination of our teachers, and against the closing of all of the public schools on the closing list. 

Catherine Ferguson student and baby at rally May 11

CFA is on the list to be closed. It is a school for pregnant and parenting teenage girls. At CFA, our sisters, cousins and friends, are not treated as outcasts, but are cared for and treated as fellow persons with value.  

CFA is a regular comprehensive high school, where the students can bring their children.  There is early childhood development and pre-school, and nurseries.  There are doctors, nurses and others who come to the school to provide services for the students and their children to make sure that they are all successful.  There is also a wonderful farm with goats, ducks, chickens, honeybees, fruit trees, vegetables and even a horse.

In a society where being a teenage mother enslaves most to a life of poverty and limited opportunity, CFA is like the first “safe house” stop on the underground railroad to freedom, a place of new beginning and hope for young women who have been told by so many that their own lives are over.  

We can save all of our schools and programs by uniting in action at CFA to make it clear that the new “Jim Crow”, second class treatment of black and Latina/o and other minority students has no place in our city.  

On April 15, 2011, the brave students of CFA led Detroit and shook up the nation by sitting down and refusing to leave the school over spring break.  This action resulted in numerous schools coming off of the closing list.  However, CFA is still on the closing list and is being used as a “political football” between the Democrats and the Republicans, both of whom could keep the school open, but neither will without a fight led by the students to make them keep it open.  

CFA student teaches son how to read protest sign at rally May 11

Next time at CFA, if hundreds, not just dozens of people are gathered outside to defend the school, we will save CFA and win more of our demands.

Just like the auto workers forced the powerful auto companies to recognize their union in the 1930’s through sit-down strikes, and Black high school and college students in the South broke the back of segregation by sitting down at lunch counters, and the hundreds of Northwestern High School students in Detroit kept their school open by walking out together and marching out last year, we must recognize, just as Dr. Martin Luther King did, that if young people act on “the fierce urgency of now,” we can move mountains. 

In addition to closing CFA and numerous other schools, class sizes in all DPS high schools are being threatened to increase to forty-five (45) students per class starting in fall of 2012.  Schools that offer a college prep curriculum will no longer be able to effectively do so in reality.  And neighborhood schools will lose electives all together, as well as many extracurricular activities.  We must organize a massive mobilization to save CFA and preserve the quality of all DPS schools.

Anyone and everyone can and should come – people of all ages, schools, cities, etc., but the students have to lead!  

Southeastern student leaders outside school March 2

At this point, we have so much power at CFA because of the first set of actions. Students at Southeastern walked out three times and won the right to sing at the MSVMA choral festival, and led a successful campaign to defend the rights of a transgendered classmate. If more students and youth in Detroit stand up and fight, we will win much more. Now is the time to stop listening to the naysayers in our life–three Ps–parents, principals and preachers, who too often speak out of fear and not strength, telling us to just keep our heads down and not to fight for what we know we deserve and believe in.  They say that there is another way, and that the adults will take care of it, but the adults have not and will not do what is necessary to fight and win. Join the movement and fight for your dignity, equality and hope for your future. 

Have your school adopt the following demands:

The enemies of public education know that their plan is not about balancing the district’s budget. They are fully aware that their statistics are wrong and fabricated and that this plan will make the district lose money.  For example, they say CFA costs the District $2.7 million* when it really only costs $750,000 and the rest comes from special federal and state funding, not the DPS general fund.

Billionaires Bill Gates and Eli Broad, supporters of education privatization

The racist, white billionaires, who do not want to pay for public education any more, believe that the people of Detroit do not have value and want to fulfill that prophecy through force. This is about implementing the New Jim Crow and forcing people to defer their dreams by blocking any opportunity for them to lead and shine.  It is their intention to destroy public education, and get away with it with only minimal objections from the community, without any serious consequences, without Detroiters organizing and raising total HELL to stop the destruction of our schools and our neighborhoods.

Roy Roberts and other pessimistic politicians, who are backed by a tiny minority of billionaires, ARE NOT OUR “FRIENDS”.  They are overseers hired to implement and enforce the New Jim Crow system of education on black and Latino/a students – separate and completely unequal once again.  This means that special Detroit schools such as CFA, Renaissance and Cass and creative and loved programs in neighborhood schools like music and robotic programs, will all be in the past and no longer exist for black and Latino/a students in Detroit.  

Then, wealthy white people can say to working class and poor white people, “you may have a poor education system that we refuse to pay for, but at least you are not black or Latino/a.”  They are closing schools and firing teachers to drive students out of the district and gentrify the city by race and class. A few middle-class students will go to private schools or leave the city, and the rest will be warehoused in inferior, overcrowded schools. Whether or not our schools stay open or teachers keep their jobs depends on whether we can overcome our fears and express our anger in a collective manner, and put our foot down and declare that Detroit students, our schools, our programs, our neighborhoods and our city are not for sale.   

 We can end the regime of overcrowded classrooms, police in the schools doling out repression and brutality, and turning what should be places of learning, where we can express and develop our full creativity and humanity, into cheap, stripped-down, prison-like holding cells. We want and deserve the full range of subjects and extracurriculars – art, music, dance, theatre, sports, AP and foreign language courses, chess, etc. – that a first-class comprehensive public education has to offer.  To the extent that any school becomes a charter, if they do not meet the full standards of the students and parents, they must lose their charter immediately! 

We CAN defeat this plan, but only by getting off our knees and fighting back. It’s time to heed the words of Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest leaders in the history of our nation, who said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” 

Take action and organize your school– Join BAMN (The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary, BAMN) at 855-ASK-BAMN  (855-275-2266), or email BAMN Coordinator Donna Stern at donna.stern@ueaa.net  www.bamn.com

Follow us on twitter: @followBAMN

 *The Detroit News, 05/27/2011                         

(VOD ed.: story coming shortly.)

 The Detroit People’s Task Force to Free the Wrongfully Convicted will be hosting a protest on Friday, June 17, 2011 at 8 a.m. in front of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice at 1441 St. Antoine Street to address the ongoing scandals involving the Detroit Crime Lab and the cases of many wrongfully convicted defendants.  The lab has been closed for three years, and there have been no new trials, despite the Wayne County Prosecutor’s pledge to confess error three years ago and award new trials to those wrongfully convicted.  In addition, the Prosecutor and the Detroit Police have engaged in a campaign of denying justice by destroying evidence and case files while at the same time illegally obtaining funding of city tax dollars to conduct sham investigations that went nowhere.   

The prosecutor should not be meddling with the files her staff handled in fraudulently convicting people to prison.  And the Detroit Police should not be in charge of guarding the very fraudulent evidence they produced to obtain those convictions.  The task force has been fighting for three years for an independent audit into the investigations of adjudicated cases of wrongful convictions.  And with the recent revelations of yet more scandals involving Detroit Police and the Prosecutor as it concerns these cases, enough is enough.  Our freedoms from unjust imprisonment are at risk; our rights to due process of law are at risk; and every fundamental right to a fair trial has been lost.  We cannot sit idly by while this attack on humanity continues.  Please come out and support the task force in calling for an independent federal probe into the Detroit Crime Lab.  Let not your silence become betrayal and defend the lives of those whose freedoms were stolen from them.  The life you save from such capricious government today may be your own tomorrow. 

For more information about the protest, please contact Roberto Guzman, Paralegal and Activist at (313) 272-1406 or Marilyn Jordan, President of the Task Force at (313) 784-4021 or Kevin Carey, Executive Director, at (313) 887-4344

Young Detroit Public Schools student speaks at march to stop school closings May 11, 2011

Alberto Ampuero* Havana.  June 2, 2011

GRANMA ONLINE

If you had to express the greatness of the United States in one word, that word would be “education,” according to Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel Laureate in Economics.

But that was earlier, when the development of education primarily signified the development of public education, and the U.S. was seen as the great land where higher education was available to the general population. Today, this image of the country has collapsed, says Krugman.

The United States currently has problems of all sizes, shapes and colors. One of the most serious is the crisis of the public education system. The low scores of academic performance and the failure of standardized tests on the part of tens of thousands of students from poor and marginalized communities combine with constant budget cuts and the trends toward privatization of the public education sector.

Add to all this a fundamental problem: Public education has undergone a qualitative shift in its operation and objectives. Education is no longer seen as a right; it has become a business opportunity. Teachers have become employees who pursue the “success” of their “clients” — the students — and the role of education authorities is in the process of being reduced to mere administrative functions at best.

In his speeches, Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, has repeated that “the secret ingredient of America’s success is its entrepreneurial spirit,”* and that this was the objective of education.

Defend Public Education

Klein and about a dozen other municipal education leaders reiterated this vision last October in a joint opinion piece in the Washington Post, where they asserted that “the transformative changes needed to truly prepare our kids for the 21st-century global economy simply will not happen unless we first shed some of the entrenched practices that have held back our education system, practices that have long favored adults, not children.”

This approach to promote the reform of the education system forms a part of a national debate in which the “reformers” in power have declared that the public education system is a failure. They declare that more than any other factor, the main obstacle to student success “is the quality of their teachers,” and they propose applying business rules that above all assess teacher effectiveness.

There is a second line of attack, in which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is actively participating, which attacks public schools as ineffective, without taking into account the meager resources with which they operate, and accuses teachers’ unions of refusing to accept the dismissal of less qualified teachers. Its alternative is charter schools, which are public schools that are administered by private groups and presented by the Obama administration as key to the salvation of public education.

As part of its Race to the Top program, the government is incentivizing states to raise their limits on the number of charter schools in exchange for federal funds.

Furthermore, the current administration seeks to replace roughly 5,000 poorly performing traditional schools with charter schools. The government has made the juicy sum of $3.5 billion available to the states to subsidize the “change” of these poorly performing schools. The more poorly performing schools that close, the more money the states receive.

But as Diane Ravitch points out, charter schools are “a force for privatization” of public education. Ravitch is a professor at New York University and former Assistant Secretary of Education, and one of the most influential national figures in the debate.

This type of school, financed with public funds, does not need to operate under the same rules as other public schools. It usually selects its students instead of accepting everyone, which allows it to deliver better results. Its teachers are not necessarily unionized; therefore, they lack labor rights. And it can accept private investment, which allows it to establish other regulations.

But something odd happened on the road to “success.” According to a broad investigation carried out by experts at Stanford University, only 17 percent of charter schools were better than traditional public schools, according to standardized test results. 37 percent were worse in comparison, and 46 percent were virtually identical.

Professor Ravitch argues that the great debate surrounding education is now between those who “believe that public education is not only a fundamental right but a vital public service, […] and those who believe that the private sector is always superior to the public sector.”

(Taken from ARGENPRESS, edited by S. Carter, translated by J. Rudolf)

* Los Angeles based journalist