Socialist Action /February 1999
Rage Leader Zack de la Roca Speaks on Mumia
Following are excerpts from a statement to the media by Zack de la
Roca, of Rage Against the Machine.
Working to ensure the legal rights that all of us presume to enjoy certainly
has turned out to be controversial!
Let me say straight up that tonight's benefit is not to support cop killers,
or any other kind of killers. And if there were no question about the guilt
of Mumia Abu-Jamal, we would not be holding this concert.
But whether Jamal is guilty, or is himself the victim of an outrageous
miscarriage of justice, is precisely what is at issue. Tonight's benefit
seeks to answer that question by allowing Jamal to have the fair and impartial
judicial review that he was denied by the state of Pennsylvania.
Parents should be proud that their children are attending and standing
up for the rights to which all people are entitled.
Rage Against the Machine and the artists participating tonight are hardly
alone in questioning what has happened to Mr. Jamal. Among those who have
questioned the Pennsylvania proceedings are Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel
laureate and head of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission;
Ronald Hampton, Executive Director of the National Black Police Association;
the European Parliament; and Amnesty International-who are with us at the
concert tonight.
We first heard of this case some years back when the Fraternal Order
of Police and Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole pressured National Public
Radio into censoring a series of commentaries on prison life recorded by
Mr. Jamal. Then Pennsylvania prison authorities put Mr. Jamal into punitive
confinement as punishment for writing his first book, "Live from Death
Row," published by Addison-Wesley.
We found that Mr. Jamal was a prominent radio journalist in Philadelphia.
He frequently reported cases of police misconduct on the air, and was threatened
along with other journalists by then Mayor Rizzo. He had no criminal record,
but as we later learned, he had an enormous FBI surveillance file that had
been kept on him since he was 15 years old.
His trial in 1982 was nothing short of a travesty. He was denied the
funds necessary to hire expert witnesses, his court-appointed attorney did
not interview a single witness before putting them on the stand, he was
denied the right to represent himself, and then he was barred from attending
his own trial when he continued to protest these outrageous acts.
Important evidence was withheld from the defense by the police and prosecution.
Witnesses were induced to change their testimony. And the state used its
peremptory challenges to knock off prospective jurors on the basis of race.
Perhaps the most absurd allegation against Jamal is that he confessed
to shooting Officer Daniel Faulkner. Jamal had been shot by Officer Faulkner
and was beaten by other police arriving at the scene. Two months later,
when Mr. Jamal filed police brutality charges, the police officers who were
with him that night suddenly "remembered" that he had confessed.
This was accepted by the court, even though the emergency room doctor and
written police reports from that evening said that Jamal had made no statement.
We were then shocked to find that when he was granted a hearing on whether
his first trial was unfair and whether he should be granted a new trial,
this hearing was conducted by the same judge who had conducted the original
trial that was in question.
This judge was a former member of the Fraternal Order of Police, and
had pronounced more death sentences than any other sitting judge in the
country-almost all of them on Black defendants.
We have a great deal of sympathy for anyone who is a victim of tragedy,
including the widows of slain police officers. But we do not feel that the
proper answer to tragedy is to inflict injustice on others. We need to base
ourselves on fact, not on emotion. And our path to closure should be paved
with a search for truth and justice, not a search for revenge against whomever
is targeted by the police.
Rage Against the Machine is not a stranger to controversy. And we are
happy that our small effort in doing this benefit has focused increased
attention on this case. We find ourselves following in the footsteps of
Bob Dylan, whose famous song and concert for Ruben "Hurricane"
Carter in 1975 helped to free someone who was falsely accused of murder
right here in New Jersey.
It is ironic that tonight, on the day after the Pope called for an end
to the death penalty in the United States, we will have others outside calling
for the taking of a life on the flimsiest of evidence.
One of the great things about young people is that they DO question,
that they do care deeply about justice, and that they have open minds. We
hope that some of them brought their parents tonight!
Socialist Action /February 1999 |