Brazilian authorities have reportedly begun to put arrested protestors on a list that is being called the “protestors register.” This list classifies all persons arrested at a demonstration as highly dangerous, and being added to the list stays on the criminal record of anyone who is added to it forever. * Brazilian police allege a number
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Tampa, FL – The trial of Sami Osmakac is underway at the Sam Gibbons Federal Court Building here, June 2. Osmakac is being accused by the government of attempted use of weapons of mass destruction. This is part of an ongoing persecution of Muslims and Arab Americans. The government has frequently targeted those who speak out against U.S. wars as well as building cases of ‘terrorism’ on fictitious evidence.
Osmakac immigrated with his family from Kosovo in the aftermath of the war in 2000. As a devout Muslim, Osmakac attended mosques throughout the Tampa Bay area. He later became a U.S. citizen. He frequently talked about the local homeless problem in the Tampa Bay area and helped give food to those in need. He also has no prior criminal record.
Osmakac was arrested in January 2012 after allegedly trying to buy weapons off of undercover FBI agents. Since then, he has spent almost two and a half years in solitary confinement. Currently he is housed in the medical area of the Pinellas County jail under suicide watch. Before his arrest he had been diagnosed with mental illnesses.
Mel Underbakke, education committee director of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms (NCPCF), is a local activist who had previously worked on the Sami Al-Arian trial in Tampa and is speaking out against this injustice. Underbakke said, “This is the third ‘terrorism’ trial I have attended at Sam Gibbons Federal Courthouse. The first two resulted in not guilty of terrorism verdicts by juries, but in both cases, the defendants had spent months and years in solitary confinement before the trial. Sadly, once again the defendant Sami Osmakac has not been accused of committing any violence, but nonetheless has been held in solitary confinement for two years before his trial began. Solitary confinement is torture and has the same lasting effects as physical torture.”
The federal prosecutors are using recordings from two FBI informants who had been spying on Osmakac or months. However, he had been talking with and led on by FBI informants for much longer. Sami Osmakac’s brother Avni Osmakac, said he had “seen agents around his house every day since 2010.” Their house frequently had undercover police vehicles parked nearby. Back then Sami had worked as a grocery stocker for a local market. This is where they think he met the first government informant. From there he spent over a year being coaxed and pushed by agents into making “radical YouTube videos”. He was eventually guided into buying fake weapons with money given to him by the FBI. Government videos show FBI informants teaching and pushing Sami into committing acts of terrorism.
The U.S. government has been trying to build a case of lies and doctored evidence to portray a mentally ill man as a terrorist. Accidental recordings between informants and their FBI supervisors have revealed other important information. From the beginning it shows, the supervisors were telling the informants to get them a “Hollywood ending.” And that the recordings of Osmakac were “gifts” for the government prosecution. It also revealed what the informants thought of Sami. At one point they said Sami was “wishy-washy” and doubted whether or not he would even carry out the FBI’s planned “attack”.
Like in the other trials, the U.S. government tries to portray Muslims, Arab-Americans and even anti-war activists as terrorists. Jared Hamil, of the Tampa Committee to Stop FBI Repression says, “They do so for two reasons – for propagandizing for their wars on countries in the Middle East and to scare other Muslims and Arab peoples from speaking out against U.S.-led invasions and occupations. Just as we see with the case of Rasmea Odeh, the U.S. government will do whatever it can to silence those who are outspoken and calling them out.”
Avni Osmakac states, “the real terrorism is going on in the courtroom.” Activists in the area plan to speak out against this trial in the coming weeks.
Detroit, MI – Contrary to erroneous press reports, Rasmea Odeh is not pleading guilty. Today in the U.S. District Court here she requested a change of counsel and reported to Judge Paul Borman that she is going to trial.
Hatem Abudayyeh of her defense committee said, “She has committed no crime and the government has no case. She has been in this country for 20 years, a citizen for 10 of them, and an upstanding one at that. Rasmea supports the empowerment of immigrant women through leadership development programming she leads in Chicago. She works closely with Black, Latino, Asian, white and other communities in Chicago, to promote multiculturalism, racial and social justice. She is supported so broadly by colleagues in Chicago that she was awarded an Outstanding Community Leader award by the Chicago Cultural Alliance in 2013.”
Abudayyeh added, “The charge brought against her is just a pretext for the continuation of federal law enforcement repression against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims in this country. This policy attempts to scapegoat and intimidate our community into staying silent and not raising its voice against injustice.”
Mick Kelly, of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, states, “Hundreds of people are being mobilized right now to travel to Detroit to fill the courtroom during Rasmea’s trial and provide support. We will be here every day, showing the world that she will not be alone.”
Kelly added, “There has already been a massive outpouring of love and support for Rasmea across the U.S. and the world, because people see this prosecution for what it is – a political attack on a 66-year-old Palestinian woman who has dedicated her life to progress and social justice for her people and all people. We will stand with her to fight these charges.”
San José, CA – On Saturday, May 3rd, more than 60 people gathered at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in San José for a reception and program with Lynne Stewart organized by the South Bay Committee Against Political Repression with a generous donation of food for the reception from the National Lawyer’s Guild. The event raised more than $1100 to help with the health costs of Lynne Stewart who is battling cancer.
Long-time attorney, Lynne Stewart, had been imprisoned on a bogus ‘material support’ for terrorism charge, for her work defending an Egyptian cleric.
While the audience was gathering for the program, a taped message from Mumia Abu-Jamal was played, welcoming the release of Lynne Stewart. The program was opened by Masao Suzuki of the SBCAPR, who had been visited by the FBI in September 2010 at the same time that antiwar and international solidarity activists in the Midwest were being raided by the FBI and subpoenaed to a Federal Grand Jury. Karen Wald then read a solidarity statement from the Cuba 5 for Mumia and Stewart.
The first speaker was Ramona Africa, coordinator of MOVE, whose headquarter was bombed by the Philadelphia police in 1985. The bombing killed 11 MOVE members, including five children, and burned down an entire block of about 60 homes. She spoke about the MOVE 9, who have been unjustly imprisoned since 1978 for the death of police officer.
Jeff Mackler of he Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, spoke about Mumia who had been on death row from thirty years, before finally having the death sentence dropped in 2012. He said that the struggle to free Mumia continues. Ralph Pointer, Lynne Stewart’s husband, thanked the audience for their support in the struggle to free Lynne Stewart and then Dan Carpenter of the National Lawyer’s Guild introduced Lynne Stewart.
Lynne Stewart said that coming home from prison was a victory, and that “I am going to keep fighting so others can go home.” She stated that she had a special concern for women prisoners, who often were separated from their children. Lynne Stewart also spoke out for political prisoners in the United States, and urged the audience to go to the website of the National Jericho Movement to learn more about how to support political prisoners in the United States.
Following the speakers there was a question and answer period. Pam Africa of MOVE also came to the event but was not feeling up to speaking.
The San José event was part of a Bay Area tour with events in San Francisco, Oakland, San Rafael, and Sacramento sponsored by the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, and KPFA.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following March 23 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
CPP condemns arrest of senior leaders investigating conditions, overseeing rehabilitation in the Visayas
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) condemns in the strongest terms the reported arrest yesterday of Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria. Tiamzon and Austria are both senior cadres of the CPP Central Committee and consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in peace negotiations with the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GPH).
At the time of their arrest, both Tiamzon and Austria were performing tasks and duties assigned to them by the CPP and the NDFP. Up to recently, both were busy conducting first hand investigation into the conditions of the working class people in the Visayas region whose lives were devastated by supertyphoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and who continue to suffer from the Aquino regime’s antipeople, crony-controlled, corrupt, and grossly inept response to the calamity.
Both were closely monitoring the efforts of the New People’s Army (NPA) in carrying out rehabilitation work in devastated regions. They were receiving reports from NPA commands about efforts to mobilize Red fighters to help build communal farms, till the land and mobilize and distribute seeds and other agricultural resources from the NDFP.
Austria, who has been among the country’s stalwarts in upholding and bannering the rights of women, is gravely concerned with the situation of women and children after the calamity, and has been vigorously calling on all revolutionary forces to work hard to expose their sufferings and extend all possible effort to alleviate their conditions. She was utterly indignant at having learned that substantial amounts of relief goods had rotted at the Aquino government’s warehouses while the people of Tacloban continue to suffer from lack of food, shelter and income.
Tiamzon, himself, has been actively looking into the widespread devastation wrought by the storm on the agricultural economy and fishing communities of Eastern Visayas, Cebu, Panay and Negros. He was personally looking into studies estimating the actual damage on agriculture and fisheries to be at P75-80 billion, contrary to the Aquino regime’s grossly understated estimate of P15 billion which help justify the allocation of bigger funds to his crony’s big business infrastructure projects.
As peace consultants of the NDFP, the arrest of Tiamzon and Austria further imperil peace negotiations between the GPH and the NDFP. The CPP condemns the Aquino regime for outrightly violating the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) in carrying out the arrest and detention of Tiamzon and Austria. They are both publicly known figures in peace negotiations. The NDFP has further identified both Tiamzon and Austria as holders of documents of identification counter-verified by then officials of the GPH.
The CPP condemns the Aquino regime and its armed forces for filing a slew of trumped-up criminal charges against Tiamzon and Austria. The CPP condemns the media campaign being conducted by Malacañang and the AFP to demonize Tiamzon and Austria by depicting them as common criminals.
Such effort by the Aquino regime seeks to draw away attention from the public flak it is getting for its lies, corruption and ineptness, especially at the heels of its monumental failures in addressing the urgent demands of the people of the Visayas devastated by the supertyphoon. The Aquino regime is increasingly isolated from the people because of its contempt and disregard for the socio-economic conditions of millions of workers and peasants who suffer from its wrong economic policies that prioritize the interests of its cronies and its foreign big business bosses.
As leaders of the CPP, Tiamzon and Austria are the opposite of the landlord Aquino and his coterie of corrupt officials. Tiamzon and Austria are the epitome of simple living. Neither of them own a private home nor drive their own sportscar. Neither do they play with guns for fun or personal satisfaction. They are not like Aquino and his officials who plunder public funds to aggrandize themselves or perpetuate their political rule.
Despite their age and health conditions, both Tiamzon and Austria continue to travel great distances in the rural areas in order to reach the farthest peasant homes and be among the most downtrodden masses. Unlike Aquino who was totally clueless of the conditions of the people in the path of supertyphoon Yolanda, Tiamzon and Austria were among the peasant masses when the winds ravaged through the Visayas. Unlike Aquino who took four days to act, Tiamzon and Austria immediately mobilized the CPP’s forces to carry out relief work and help in the rehabilitation of the peasant masses who suffered grave devastation of their crops and livelihood.
The CPP demands the immediate release of Tiamzon and Austria, as well as all their companions, and the dropping of all criminal charges against them. The CPP demands that the Aquino regime accord them the right to counsel and medical attention. Austria has severe asthma, and suffers both from a serious kidney ailment and spinal bone degeneration secondary to osteoporosis, and is in need of constant medical care.
The CPP, together with the workers, peasants and downtrodden masses and all their revolutionary forces, deplore the arrest of Tiamzon and Austria. Their arrest forms part of the general trend of repression under the Aquino regime. Daily, the landlord Aquino seeks to perpetuate the oppressive and exploitative system by unleashing his attack dogs, armed and supported with US military financing, against the peasant masses and workers, who stand up for their rights and voice their demands.
While the wisdom and guidance of individual leaders is important, the advance of the revolutionary struggle depends more on the collective wisdom, determination and organization of the revolutionary masses. The arrest of Tiamzon and Austria will not stop the main trend of advance of the people’s war.
It is the Aquino regime’s puppetry, corruption, brutality and mendacity that teach the Filipino people about the need to wage revolutionary resistance. They are thus ever determined to advance along the path of widespread mass struggles and revolutionary armed resistance in order to achieve national and social liberation.
Tampa, FL – About two dozen people gathered here, March 7, at the United Church of Christ to hear from speakers on civil freedoms. The topics ranged from solitary confinement to the persecution of peace activists. Friends of Human Rights in Tampa Bay organized the event and many other organizations participated.
In the room, the organizers had constructed a mock 6 by 9 foot solitary confinement cell to show people what Arab, Muslim and political prisoners have to go through. The event opened up with a video of Sami Al-Arian. You can view the video here: http://youtu.be/NPdpxxBR2jk. Sami Al-Arian was the University of South Florida professor who was thrown into jail in 2006 for alleged “material support for terrorism.” He is part of the ongoing persecution of Arab-Americans throughout the U.S. At his trial, he was found not guilty, but is currently under house arrest in Virginia.
Jared Hamil, a local activist, spoke of the work of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. He talked about the 23 activists who were raided by the FBI or subpoenaed to a grand Jury in 2010, and their connection to the case of Rasmea Odeh. Odeh is a Chicago Palestinian leader who was arrested in October 2013 on bogus immigration fraud charges.
Hamil also said that only a few weeks ago, the anti-war and international solidarity activists had received the unsealed affidavits that were used to obtain the search warrants for the FBI raids in 2010. He noted, “Like many anti-terrorism cases against Arabs and Muslims, the affidavit contained lies and out of context statements taken by the police spy. They pieced together a fabricated story. The affidavits only reveal that they were targeted specifically for speaking out and organizing against U.S. wars and for building solidarity with movements across the world.”
Speaking about Rasmea Odeh, Hamil said, “Rasmea has done nothing wrong. She has been singled out because of who she is. She’s a Palestinian woman, a respected community leader, and an activist who speaks out against U.S. Israeli occupation of Palestine. For the U.S. government, though, that’s a lot of wrong.”
The last speaker was Laila Yaghi, mother of imprisoned Ziyad Yaghi from Raleigh, North Carolina. Ziyad is currently locked up in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Coleman, Florida. He was arrested in July 2009 when he was 19 years old for allegedly “conspiring to materially support terrorists.” He was one of seven young men who the U.S. government followed for years and were singled out for being Arab, Muslim and against the war in Afghanistan.
Laila Yaghi spoke of how the FBI had followed both her and her son for years. After he was arrested the FBI pressured Ziyad to lie about the other men who were arrested to get a lesser sentence. He did not. At the court, she said, the prosecutor used unclear recordings and statements to make a case to the jury. Yaghi also said the prosecutor had made use of unrelated videos showing armed fighters with black masks for dramatic effect. Ziyad Yaghi is expected to be released from prison in 2037.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Feb. 2 statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
The Popular Front’s prison branch reported that the Zionist prison authority has transferred the Front’s General Secretary, Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, from Shata prison to Gilboa prison.
The Prison Branch said that this is aimed to distract and obstruct the efforts of Sa’adat as a leader in the prisons to unify the national prisoners’ movement and build the struggle within the prisons. The Branch noted that Sa’adat and other leaders of the prisoners’ movement are always subject to vindictive measures and are closely monitored by the Zionist prison authorities in attempts to obstruct their leadership and influence within the prisons.
Saint Paul, MN – Activists from the anti-war and the Palestine solidarity movement gathered here, Jan. 24 to demand the release of all Palestinian political prisoners and an end to Palestinian Authority (PA) security cooperation with Israeli occupation forces. The group rallied for an hour in the midst of a snowstorm. The vigil was held in response to a call from the Campaign to Free Ahmed Sa’adat for Freedom Weeks to commemorate the 12th anniversary of Sa’adat’s abduction by PA forces.
Observed by hundreds of drivers at one of St. Paul’s busiest rush hour intersections, the group included members of the Minneapolis-based Anti-War Committee, the Minnesota Cuba Committee, students from nearby Macalester College and regular attendees of the long-running weekly Palestine solidarity vigil held in the same location.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network Samidoun, “Ahmad Sa’adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, is one of over 5200 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails. These political prisoners – men, women and children – are activists, organizers and political leaders of the Palestinian people.”
At the conclusion of Friday’s vigil, Anti-War Committee member Sophia Hansen-Day shared the following words, “We are here today to demand the release of all Palestinian political prisoners and for an end to Palestinian Authority security cooperation with Israeli occupation forces. We are here today to commemorate the 12th anniversary of Ahmed Sa’adat’s abduction by PA security forces and to call attention to his ongoing imprisonment by Israeli occupiers.
“We are here today to acknowledge the power of solidarity. In the words of heroic freedom fighter Samer Issawi prior to his release, ‘Your solidarity gives me the power to continue my hunger strike until I achieve my demand for freedom. It strengthens my steadfastness because it makes me realize that I’m not alone in the battle for freedom and dignity.’ Today we celebrate the release of Samer Issawi whose determination galvanized the Palestinian resistance, and we acknowledge the work yet to be done.
“We are here today on land stolen from the Dakota people to mark the ongoing occupation of Indigenous territory both in the U.S. and Palestine, to recognize the crimson blood on all our hands and to adamantly refuse silent complicity with settler colonialism and its ongoing violence.
“So, today, we raise our voices to the power of resistance, to the power of solidarity, to the power of demanding dignity and justice for all! Another world is necessary, another world is possible, another world is on her way. Long live Palestine!”
For more information, please go to www.freeahmadsaadat.org or attend an Anti-War Committee meeting held 7-9pm Thursday evenings at 4200 Cedar Ave in Minneapolis.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Jan. 18 statement from the Peace Delegation Revolutionary Armed Forces on the imprisonment by the U.S. of Colombian revolutionary, Professor Ricardo Palmera. Known in Colombia as Simón Trinidad, Palmera was kidnapped, brought to the United States and is now serving what amounts to a life sentence.
For more information from the FARC Peace Delegation: http://farc-epeace.org/
For information from the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera: http://www.freericardopalmera.org/
After 10 years behind bars, Simón Trinidad has to be repatriated
“I don’t have guaranteed the right to defense; they don’t allow me to send documents to my lawyer and judges in Colombia, in which I can prove my innocence; this has to be shown by my compañeros to the government delegation in Havana. They won’t even let me talk to the ICRC”.
This is the protest of Simón Trinidad, chained and shackled, from the dungeons of the maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, United States, to the judge who is judging him from the city of Neiva, Colombia.
This outstanding fighter of the FARC-EP has already been confined behind the bars of the empire for ten years, without bowing down, without breaking down, without any wavering in his conscience, despite the cruel and degrading treatment he has received by U.S. authorities.
Simón was extradited due to the perfidy of former President Uribe, supreme commander of paramilitarism in Colombia. This sinister figure is Washington’s favorite, despite his involvement in international war crimes and crimes against humanity. And Simón was extradited in violation of the constitutional provision which prohibits the extradition of national citizens for political reasons.
Since Álvaro Uribe Vélez couldn’t send him to the United States for the charge of rebellion, he fabricated a legal pretext -the false charge of drug-trafficking-, to achieve his repulsive purpose. It was an act of revenge and blackmail, in criminal association with military intelligence and the Attorney General, Camilo Osorio.
Thus, Simón was extradited by the gangster government of Colombia. The country remembers his photo, at the moment he was led by the gringos to the airplane, when he raised his handcuffed fists and shouted: Long live Bolívar, long live Manuel Marulanda, long live the FARC!
There, in the courtrooms of the North, accused in a foreign language, he defeated the lies of the deserters and the false witnesses brought from Colombia, with irrefutable arguments. With the assistance of his public defender, attorney Robert Tucker, Simón Trinidad was acquitted in the U.S. of drug trafficking charges, defeating the manipulation of wicked judges, such as Joyce Lamberth.
But the United States, determined as they were to send a “strong signal” to the FARC, decided to condemn Simón for something he was never involved in: the capture of three gringo mercenaries working for the CIA, after the aircraft in which they were carrying out technical intelligence against the FARC, had been shot down in the Caquetá jungle. To be able to blame him, they falsely claimed that Simón Trinidad was a member of the FARC Central High Command. When the FBI realized that this argument was implausible, they withdrew the evidence of a video of the launching of the Bolivarian Movement for the New Colombia, in 2000. This video had previously been manipulated by them, to make Simón appear as a member of the Central High Command of the FARC.
Still, Simón Trinidad was convicted, after two flawed trials, to 60 years in an underground prison where he can’t see the sun, nor does he have the right to see the night. He’s in the maximum security prison in Florence, where the worst criminals are imprisoned, and as he is accused of terrorism, which in the United States is the worst of crimes, his rights as a human being are totally violated, every day.
The shameful extradition treaty, by which Colombia transfers its legal sovereignty to a foreign power, reads you cannot condemn an extradited national citizen to life imprisonment. Well, Simon is 60 years old, which means that he would achieve freedom when he is 120. This is, in fact, a life sentence! However, no protest or request has been made by this submissive Colombian government.
Simón is not only buried alive in Florence, Colorado. He’s in absolute solitary confinement, there’s no appropriate medical care, they took away his glasses and some cards he used to play Solitaire. He is always taken to the court with his hands and feet chained and shackled. he isn’t allowed to have any newspapers or books. These were the circumstances in which he received the sad news of the death of his compañera Lucero and their daughter Alix, in a bombing by the CIA in Putumayo. He isn’t allowed to access the files for his defense in Colombia, and the embassy in Bogota systematically denies his lawyer, jurist Ramiro Orjuela, a visa to visit him. Meanwhile, the schizophrenic Colombian justice, which opened 104 charges against him, base their accusations on the false assertion that this guerrilla fighter belongs to the Central High Command of the FARC. Neither the government nor the intelligence, nor the Prosecuting Attorney or anyone else has evidence of his participation in the acts alleged against him. There is no evidence, that’s why some judges have dropped the charges, declaring him innocent.
From Havana, Cuba, the Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP urges the ICRC-Switserland, to carry out a humanitarian visit to Simón Trinidad at the U.S. prison where he is confined.
We urge the Colombian government to enable Simón, as member of the Peace Delegation of the FARC, to dialogue with his compañeros in Havana.
This is an SOS to all human rights organizations in the world, to jurists and experts in international humanitarian law, to political and social organizations of the five continents, the UN, UNASUR, CELAC, the Vatican, churches, Nobel Prizes of peace, well-intentioned people, to call for the immediate release of Simón Trinidad and, in the meanwhile, to demand the U.S. authorities improve his conditions.
The Colombian government has done little or nothing for the release of Simón. It doesn’t make gestures of peace as its counterpart does in the peace talks. It doesn’t know what reciprocity is, and we encourage it to act decisively. The government should take the legal remedy of exequatur in its hands to have Simón’s sentence recognized in Colombia. He could serve his prison term in his homeland and once he arrives there, the judicial authorities could authorize him to go to Havana, to play a leading role in the construction of peace, as we have asked for.
We send an embrace to all our friends in the world, and the message that the spiritual strength and ideological firmness of Simón Trinidad continue unscathed, untouched, above the arrogance of his gringo prison guards.
Simón is the Nelson Mandela of Our America.
Freedom for Simón!
Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Jan 15 statement from the leadership of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). You can read Fight Back!’s interview with PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat here http://www.fightbacknews.org/2003-3-summer/pflp.htm
To the struggling masses of our people…
On January 15, 2002, the Palestinian Authority security apparatus committed the crime of arresting Comrade General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Hamdi Quran and Basil al-Asmar, in compliance with the requirements of security coordination. This did not stop the attacks on the resistance, the escalation of settlements and the building of the segregation wall.
The Authority’s crime was completed by the enemy’s attack and abduction of the comrades from Jericho prison, when all agreements were disregarded in U.S. and British collusion with the attack, which exposed the inability of the Authority to protect even its prisons, while our comrades were taken to spend long years in isolation – for which the occupation is not solely responsible.
We honour these heroic comrades – at their forefront, Comrade leader Ahmad Sa’adat, and affirm today that he was unanimously re-elected with full confidence in his leadership as General Secretary by the Central Committee and the Seventh National Conference of the Front. This is a well-deserved trust that he has earned, demonstrating steadfastness, clarity and unwavering commitment to struggle, principled and ready for struggle, with a broad political vision and carrying a high level of national respect. He and his imprisoned comrades, and all of the prisoners of our people together are at the forefront of the struggle, insisting on Palestinian national goals and rights in their totality on the ground, without prejudice, compromise, negligence, or barter.
To the masses of our resisting people…
The courage shown by the people of Qusra village and its area are a brilliant example of the struggling steadfastness of our people and their willingness to continue in all circumstances to confront and resist the enemy and their settlers. As we call on all to be inspired and learn from the steadfastness of our farmers and our prisoners, we are fully aligned with the alternative they present to relying on the futile negotiations. It is clear that the goal of the negotiations is the liquidation of the national liberation cause of our people, enhancing the status of the Zionist entity in the Arab world, and opening the doors to the official Arab regimes to normalize relations with it.
Today, we confront the ongoing lessons of Oslo and all subsequent agreements and negotiations, while the Palestinian Authority continues to drive the PLO into relying upon this absurd and devastating process, attempting to close the door on a popular option while yielding to U.S. and Arab reactionary pressure.
To our people and our nation…
This date shares an appropriate coincidence with the shuttle diplomacy tours of the Secretary of State of the U.S. imperialists, between Palestine and the Arab countries, in order to liquidate our national cause and replace it with the issue of exchanges of land and population, drawing borders, and in support of the Israeli demand for recognition of the enemy state as the “state of the Jewish people.” This is an attempt to liquidate the Palestinian right of return and to whet the appetite for ethnic cleansing against the rights of our people in the areas of Palestine occupied in 1948.
All of this comes with total disregard of international legitimacy and United Nations resolutions on Palestine, and of the United Nations as a reference, to implement the U.S./Zionist vision.
What is happening now requires popular confrontation of any party who seeks to negotiate a temporary or permanent solution that detracts from fundamental Palestinian national rights. This moment requires of all national and social forces among the Palestinian people to mobilize to thwart this new scheme, to protect the resistance option, and return the Palestinian issue to the UN as a reference, with its resolutions to be implemented – not negotiated.
Our cause is in danger from this heated American pursuit to enforce upon us the terms of the enemy. It seeks to take advantage of the state of demobilization and national division, and the resulting confusion about events in the Arab world. It is clear that the leadership of the Authority is unable to confront, and its options have been reduced to negotiations, negotiations, and then more negotiations.
It is urgent to move past the era of division and return to the clear Palestinian national constants, build our movement and abandon once and for all the illusions that have proved thorny and dangerous. It is our people’s right to know what is going on in the corridors and back-rooms of negotiations, and it is their right to decide and judge on the basis of that reality.
To the masses of our great people…
On this occasion, we re-confirm our emphatic commitment to our pledge to the heroic comrades and all of the martyrs and prisoners. We renew our rejection of security coordination and we demand to put an end to the continuing illusions of negotiations amidst a frenzy of settlements and settler violence. We call for an end to the devastating division and the rebuilding of the Palestine Liberation Organization on the basis of a principled political strategy and a national democratic movement to restore the political unity of our people in the homeland, diaspora and exile, to rise and march again in the national liberation struggle.
Salutes and tributes to our comrade General Secretary and his comrades
Glory to the martyrs, freedom for the prisoners
Unite to confront Kerry’s plan for the liquidation of our national cause
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – Political Bureau
January 15, 2014