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WEB POSTED 11-20-2001

 

ONE
on
ONE
with The Final Call

Reflections on the trial of the New York 8
Black revolutionaries and F.B.I.

Over 500 F.B.I. agents spread throughout New York on the night of October 17, 1984 to arrest eight Black revolutionaries, whom the newspapers would call "urban terrorists" the next day. With guns pointed to the heads of children, bazooka rocket launchers cocked on homes and searchlights locking down the streets, the police culminated a two-year monitoring plan that included wire taps, video and physical surveillance. The NY 8 won victory in a month-and-a-half battle for bail as the first people held under the new federal Preventive Detention Law (No Bail Act) which fundamentally turned around the presumption of innocence in making them prove their right to bail. They faced over 72 conspiracy charges for isolated, petty crimes that could not be legally considered on their own. So, they were linked together as predicate acts of a criminal enterprise, which laid the basis for the government to apply RICO, the Racketeering Influence Organization Act used against organized crime. In essence, the NY 8 were charged with conspiring to commit conspiracies.

New case law was set to circumvent the wives� legal spousal privilege of not having to testify against their husbands. The government created eight separate grand juries (called a Chinese Wall) where wives would only testify against the other parties. They refused and were imprisoned. Failed attempts to force the testimony of others resulted in more jail sentences, with one supporter staying behind bars longer than those on trial, which lasted from April-August 1985.

Recently, in New York, the December 12th Movement, a group organized from the core of the NY 8, hosted an anniversary celebration of the NY 8, who defeated all criminal conspiracy charges and walked away with community service and probation. Final Call staff writer Dora Muhammad recently went One-on-One with the NY 8�s political voice during their trial, Omowale Clay, to compare the political climate that led to the 1984 arrest with the climate surrounding the current war on terrorism.

Final Call News (FCN): What helped you get through the trial?

Omowale Clay (OC): Here we were each facing 260 years in jail, locked down with 24-hour maximum security, cut off from everything. One of the things that helped us through that was our politics. We knew that we were not criminals. If anything we had done in our lives, it was fight for the liberation of our people.

FCN: Why do you feel the case is a relevant backdrop in understanding the quickening pace of new laws passing through Congress?

OC: The American judicial system will be one of the vehicles of fascism in essence. We saw a series of criminal laws that were applied politically. Our position was, if they could find us guilty then they have laid a legal precedent to arrest people for ideas, thoughts, actions that never happened but the ones that you say we were going to do. Every day they called us terrorists. Finally, by the end of the trial they were forced to call us Black revolutionaries.

We saw the adaptation of military tactics used in an international arena being used domestically: The preemptive strike is the rationale for attacking Arab countries without any provocation by the theory that we�re attacking them to prevent an attack on us. It is defined by the perpetrator. We think, therefore, we can act. It does not get sanctioned internationally in any court of law or any tribunal. One of the reasons Bush says that we are at war, even though Congress has not declared war, is because it creates a different climate of what is possible, particularly on the question of civil and human rights. They can now say that if you�re demonstrating against the government that�s seditious conspiracy, an act against the security of the United States. Now, the FBI has been told that all the gloves are off. You can deal openly with unscrupulous characters. Before, they were wire tapping illegally anyway. Now they can do it legally which means they can now go a step further to crush dissent.

FCN: How do you compare the climate during the time of the trial to the one that exists now?

OC: Back in that time, the Reagan economy was one of beaucoup money and growth for the rich but the poor were in recession. This country was in an economic crisis before this attack. The recession that they were going into meant that they were going to have to lay some people off. The attack gave them the pretext to resolve some of their economic contradictions. The airlines did not fly for four days. They lost $5 billion as an industry. They�ve laid off over 30,000 workers in the airlines. The government then gave them $5 billion and makes available to them $10 million in loan guarantees but never required them to hire back the 30,000 people.

The most important thing is that you cannot separate the growing right wing trends in this country from the political economy. It is phenomenal the number of businesses that are being taken over or going out of business. The crisis in the economy leads to the question of the corresponding laws to ensure the protection of rich people. With that kind of crisis in the economy there has to be the development of more stringent infringements upon people�s civil and human rights.

FCN: How does the new anti-terrorism law fit into the equation?

OC: One of things that we witnessed during our trial was a growing development of fascism in this country under a pretext. Recently, (Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld said we�re going to use every law on the books, from immigration to the IRS, to put these terrorists behind bars. Well, wait a minute. If they�re terrorists, then they have in fact committed acts that make them terrorists. And there are laws on the books already to do that. Why are you talking about immigration? If they have done something, you wouldn�t apply immigration law to them. What he was really saying was, we�re going to start using these laws against anyone we want to use it against by us simply saying, this is who you are.

FCN: What are the lessons to be learned today from your case?

OC: Psychologically, with all that they did, our case is a very good lesson to never give up. When it seems like they have assembled everything against you, never give up. You have to have faith in our people that once they understand what is going on, they are your most reliable base. Consciousness is having some sense of history. When you have a sense of what has happened before, it helps you better understand the things that are happening now. For people who look at this and say, this doesn�t really concern me, it�s a real question of political education.

Also, that they know how to script things. They�ll say, "Let�s create this atmosphere that they�re guilty." That�s very important for us in this crisis right now to see . No one condones terrorism but it is a military tactic. We watch on television things that this government is doing around the world. We can flip the channel if we don�t want to look at it anymore. Those people who are the victims of U.S. foreign policy can�t change any channels. But as body bags begin to come home in this country, we will become much more sensitive . When it�s in your face, you begin to start questioning what�s going on. You find yourself in the situation where the rights that you thought you had, you no longer have. These are lessons from the NY 8 case.

FCN: Thank you.

 


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