Socialist Action /March 1999
The Persecution of the Los Angeles Eight
In a Feb. 24 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court gave the American rulers
a new license for political repression against foreign-born residents.
By a vote of six to three, it rejected the appeal of eight supporters
of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Los Angeles
who immigration officials have been trying to deport since 1987.
The government has clearly gone after the Los Angeles Eight because they
were active supporters of the PFLP, which the government characterizes as
a "terrorist organization." In fact, one of the eight was singled
out specifically because the FBI thought he was an effective organizer.
The PFLP is a component part of the Palestinian Liberation Organization
(PLO), with which the U.S. government now has a cozy relationship. The PFLP
has not been linked to any violent acts in recent years. But it opposes
the Israeli-PLO peace accords and subsequent agreements between the PLO-run
Palestinian authority and Israel reached under the patronage of the United
States.
For Washington, apparently, opposing U.S. foreign policy is enough to
get you labeled "terrorist," and once the State Department imposes
that label, you have no rights.
It is ironic that the Supreme Court decision came down only days after
the CIA masterminded the kidnapping of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdish
resistance to Turkish genocide by a squad of masked Turkish commandos.
The Kurdish leader has been subjected to drugging, torture, and public
humiliation worthy of a regime determined to wipe out an entire people.
The U.S. authorities claimed that Ocalan was a "terrorist."
The "antiterrorism" law passed by Congress in 1996 gives U.S.
courts the right to prosecute anyone who supports in any way an organization
labeled as "terrorist" by the U.S. State Department and to impose
heavy penalties.
Obviously, arbitrary political repression against foreign born residents
will inevitably be extended to native born citizens as well.
The purpose of political repression is to intimidate, and the repressors
want to be able to intimidate everyone. The Ocalan case shows that the U.S.
authorities do not care about the niceties of citizenship or international
law.
The ruling of Supreme Court Judge Scalia is particularly sinister in
that he argued that it would be an invasion of "executive privilege"
to question the political motives of any government prosecution. That is
carte blanche for the government to use any legal pretext for the sake of
political persecution.
Socialist Action /March 1999 |