By Anthony D. Prince
January 15, 2011 marks the 82nd anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Though many speeches will be made, few will address the troubling parallels between the role played by the FBI then and its current campaign to intimidate, smear and even imprison those who continue to hold aloft Dr. King's banner. Today, as federal agents continue to serve grand jury subpoenas and raid the homes of labor and peace activists in Illinois and Minnesota, some 23 people including local union officers and stewards from AFSCME, SEIU, Teamsters and other segments of organized labor find themselves in the crosshairs.
The government persecution echoes that perpetrated against Dr. King by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI which used wiretaps, tails, the planting of false stories in the press, blackmail and other sordid tactics. The harassment intensified after King publicly condemned the war in Vietnam, denouncing the U.S. involvement as irreconcilable with economic and social justice for America's poor. "There is but one way out for you," threatened the FBI in an anonymous letter suggesting suicide. Undeterred, King's last days were spent supporting the striking sanitation workers of Memphis. His assassination came on the heels of an internal FBI report that labeled King a "direct threat to American security." Today, that same false pretext -- now termed "America's war on terror" -- is being used to justify the recent FBI raids. Yet, a close examination of the items demanded from the targeted activists unmasks the government's true intent.
Included in the documents seized by federal agents, for example, are private letters to and from persons in various foreign countries, including Colombia, a South American nation where over 3,000 union leaders have been assassinated since the mid-1980s. Many of those served with the subpoenas -- such as Minneapolis Teamster Mick Kelley -- belong to unions with a history of solidarity with the embattled labor movement in Colombia. In 2002, the Teamsters, which represents thousands of Coca-Cola workers in the U.S., picketed Coke's annual stockholders meeting to protest the multinational's links to death squads responsible for the plant gate assassination of Isidro Gil, chief negotiator for Coca-Cola workers in Colombia. As recently as August of last year, 500 Teamster-represented Coke workers in Seattle went on strike, resisting widespread surveillance and intimidation in their fight for a just contract. The Teamsters is just one of dozens of U.S. trade unions that have hosted tours of persecuted Colombian workers. Aware of the company's brutal policies south of the border, the Teamsters had no intention of letting that war come home.
One can only imagine the volume of correspondence that has facilitated the solidarity movement between American unions and their embattled comrades in Colombia and other countries where repressive regimes permit U.S. multinationals to operate with impunity. Now, as a result of the recent grand jury subpoenas and FBI raids, that correspondence is now in the hands of the federal government. Lurking behind the "anti-terrorist" justification is the government's real mission: to stifle the growing international union, solidarity and peace movements of which Martin Luther King was a martyred architect.
Those who draft search warrants to silence opponents of U.S. military policy have no right to speak of a man who worked "to see the fervor of the civil rights movement imbued into the peace movement." Those who empanel grand juries to investigate critics of Haliburton, Blackwater and other war profiteers ignore King's indictment of "racism, poverty, militarism and materialism" and his demand for "the reconstruction of society, itself."
On this day, we best honor King by supporting those who continue his long march to justice.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment