Defend the Rights of Youth
to Speak and Organize
Youth across the country are joining in to build resistance on many fronts, including opposition to unjust wars, attacks on immigrants, national minorities and women, and repression of their rights at school. They are taking a stand against efforts to criminalize them and block them from thinking for themselves and building a bright future. Universities and high schools, far from assisting the youth and arming them to fully contribute to society are in the forefront of repressing their rights. Day-to-day life in high schools is far more like prisons than schools. Youth are being trained to take orders from arbitrary authorities, to accept collective punishment, and to submit to an atmosphere that is completely contrary to what is needed for learning and teaching. Indeed, there is a concerted effort to block thinking and the political discourse necessary for it.
It has become the norm for high schools to practically ban youth from talking, especially in public places like hallways and cafeterias. Anything the schools deem to be “disruptive” or “not part of the mission of the school” is arbitrarily banned. No recourse is provided for the students. Both students and teachers are threatened with punishment if they do not submit. Learning is essentially being outlawed, replaced by teachers acting as police and youth being treated as criminals. Even the practices of the prisons, of lockdowns, searches with no cause, confiscation of property as punishment, constant humiliation and more, are being imposed.
At the same time, teachers are not responsible for educating the youth and assisting them in contributing to society. Instead they are the enforcers of arbitrary actions by administrators and school officials. They are supposed to enforce impunity by officials, in the name of enforcing “rules” to silence the youth.
What is becoming clear is that the ruling circles, refusing to go forward to and modernize social relations, are going backward. They can no longer accept an educated youth who are broadly rejecting their failed system. They instead need youth trained to submit to the impunity and war of a fascist state. They need youth who will be their soldiers in wars abroad and in repressing the people at home. They need youth are not informed, but who are disinformed, who are so overwhelmed by the madness around them that they abandon their fight for the future. To achieve this school is a daily regime of following arbitrary rules, accepting the whim of those in authority, accepting humiliation, being blocked from even normal discussion with each other and then being thrown out all together for saying no way!
The stand of the youth to fight for their rights, to demand an education on a par with the development of society, to insist that they can and must discuss and organize to defend their rights is a stand for the future. Voice of Revolution salutes all the youth coming to the fore on the many fronts of resistance and standing up to say we have rights, we are the future and we will fight to make it a bright one fit for human beings!
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Students Resist Arbitrariness and Criminalization
Students across the country are standing up for their rights to free speech and conscience and organizing to resist efforts by administrators and other officials to deny their rights. Included in this resistance are efforts to organize student clubs, distribute materials in school, perform their own plays, have their own banners at actions and more. In some instances, youth and their parents have taken their cases to court. In each case students, their families, and numerous supporters have taken firm stands against the arbitrariness and criminalization imposed by state and school officials. In doing so, many have prevailed in court, insisting that students have the right to speak on and off campus and cannot be censored or silenced by school officials.
The attacks on students’ rights come in the context of numerous government efforts to target and criminalize all those, especially youth, whose views and actions differ from the government’s. Schools around the country have already escalated attacks on students for wearing T-shirts with messages they consider offensive or disruptive, forced more students to undergo drug testing, even when not suspected of using drugs, allowed school and police officials to conduct mass searches of the entire school, placed on lockdown, restricted what students can say on the internet, suspended young students for very minor incidents, and more.
In one recent case a Florida high school was found guilty of discrimination and ordered by the courts to recognize a student club that promotes respect for people with different sexual orientation. Under the Equal Access Act, public schools that receive federal funding and have clubs that meet outside of class time are required to grant equal rights to every club. School officials attempted to ban the club by arguing that it violated the school’s abstinence-only policy. This ruling was welcome news for many youth who work to organize political or cultural clubs only to be denied recognition by the administration.
In another recent case, in Syracuse, New York, a judge ruled that the Liverpool Central School District could not prevent a fourth grader from distributing a flier on her religious views. The district attempted to claim that such an action would give rise to “fear or apprehension of disturbance.” The family spent nearly three years fighting in court but finally prevailed. This too will be utilized by students who are routinely told they cannot distribute material on school property, or that it has to be approved first by administrators, free to make arbitrary decisions. The ruling affirmed that schools must respect the right of the youth to distribute materials on campus.
In Indiana, the Court of Appeals recently ruled that a lower judge had violated a student’s free-speech rights when he placed her on probation for posting an expletive-laden entry on MySpace, a popular website among students and youth. The student’s post was mainly criticizing a school principal and the school’s policy on body piercings. The court stated that the student’s “overall message constitutes political speech,” which is protected under the law.
In these types of cases school officials typically claim that what students are saying or doing somehow goes against some school policy or mission, and that conflicting messages are grounds for banning, silencing, or criminalizing students and their activities. Another arbitrary measure often taken by school officials is claiming that somehow what the students are saying or doing is “controversial,” “political,” will “cause disruption,” or even “a riot.” Such assertions are spurious and do not stand up. On the contrary, students generally find that such expression contributes to discussion and learning.
The fighting stand of the youth and their families to refuse to be silenced and to fight for the rights of all students, as seen in these cases and many on-going battles is an important contribution to be applauded by all.[TOP]
Connecticut Youth Denied Free Speech
One of the recent examples of attacks on the rights of youth to free speech occurred in Connecticut at Wilton High School. Youth their regularly organize to put on plays and this year decided to put together one based on the war in Iraq. The students organized to get letters and words of U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq. Entitled Voices in Conflict, students at Wilton High School compiled the reflections of soldiers and others — including a 19-year-old Wilton High graduate killed in Iraq — to create their own play. The entire play was based on material from the soldiers themselves and was an effort to address a problem youth are facing, not only in terms of having family members in Iraq but also in terms of decisions concerning joining the military, participating in actions against the war and so forth.
The play provided a space for thinking on the matter, from the perspective of soldiers actually engaged in the war and from that of students at home. The students practiced and were prepared to perform the play, but the principal of the school decided to ban it. According to him, the drama might hurt those “who had lost loved ones or who had individuals serving as we speak.” How does simply presenting the views of soldiers on the war hurt others, but the war itself and military recruiters on campus do not? And is the same standard of "hurting those who have lost loved ones" used when discussing the families of Iraqis who have lost loved ones, or of Muslims or immigrants who have been detained and deported?
The youth attempted to meet criticisms made by the principal but still, the play was banned. Then the excuse was that there was not enough rehearsal time to ensure the play would provide “a legitimate instructional experience for our students.” The principal also told the students that it was not their place to tell audiences what soldiers were thinking. He did not elaborate why this was the case, why the same youth expected to fight the war are not supposed to discuss or debate it, and why the school was becoming a place for censorship instead of learning.
The students involved have produced Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and other significant plays but in this instance were told by the principal that they could not perform a play of their own making. He also threatened the students with punishment if they chose to perform the play outside of school. They were also forced to remove the script from their webpage. (The school has since relented on performances outside of school, while still banning any at the school).
Many people are rallying around the students and asking for the play to be performed. Many youth on hearing about the ban are organizing to oppose similar arbitrary actions in their schools. As one the youth are taking the stand, We have the Right to Speak and Organize!
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Threats of Suspension Expected
Buffalo Youth Continue Organizing
Youth at Buffalo's McKinley High School continued their organizing efforts during the spring break. The youth are preparing for the likelihood that they will be faced with suspension for voicing their views and discussing their rights with their fellow students. Buffalo Forum applauds these efforts of the youth and urges youth throughout the city to join in defending rights.
The Declaration of Student Rights written and distributed by the youth is a clear effort to address problems youth and teachers face and to provide alternatives. The youth are demanding that their right to education be affirmed by teachers and administrators alike. They are rejecting the daily humiliation they are forced to endure, whether it is being threatened for expressing their views, being told to be quiet all the time, or given detentions simply for talking, or being forced to ask to go to the bathroom, and on top of that often denied permission. The Declaration of Rights also rejects illegal searches and seizures, often done "without probable cause, due process or without respect for the privacy of the student." It calls for an end to arbitrariness and impunity by administrators, demanding a single standard for all with "clearly defined rules, regulations and consequences." It also defends the rights of the youth to play a role in making decisions, calling for "adequate representation in the managements and decisions made in our educational facilities." The students also "demand that the quality of our schools be reviewed and revived and that our education be taken seriously!" It is clear that they are acting to defend the rights of youth and teachers alike and to develop the atmosphere needed for learning and teaching, yet they are being threatened with suspension for doing so.
The atmosphere imposed on the youth is not a learning or teaching atmosphere — it is an oppressive prison atmosphere. Our youth are being made into criminals simply for going to school. Then those who resist this criminalization are threatened, or otherwise singled out for punishment. The very youth that should be applauded for taking up social responsibility and striving to change conditions for the benefit of all are instead threatened with suspension.
The McKinley youth may very well face a mass suspension of more than 60 students simply for standing up for their rights. And, if everyone does not submit, the administration could very well extend the collective punishment, by canceling the senior prom. Such arbitrary actions have been taken in the past, where Homecoming was canceled and Junior Prom canceled based on the actions of a few, actions which themselves could have been dealt with differently. And once canceled, these activities of the youth have not been restored. It is this impunity to impose collective punishment that must be eliminated, not the organizing of the youth.
Buffalo Forum urges all the youth at McKinley to be prepared to stand together against any suspensions — if one is suspended, all are suspended and we will all together organize our own space for discussion and learning! We urge youth and teachers citywide to also be prepared to defend the McKinley youth. Collective punishment is a crime and no administrator has the right to carry it out.[TOP]
All Out for May Day 2007
Mass Actions for Immigrant Rights Build Momentum for May Day
In cities and states across the U.S. people are organizing to stand up in defense of immigrant rights and the rights of all, opposing the government’s plans for indentured servants using “guest” worker programs, the militarization of the border, raids and deportations and the death wall at the border. Thousands demonstrated in Los Angeles and other cities on March 25, the first anniversary of the “Gran Marcha” 2006. An estimated 50,000 and 75,000 marched again on April 7 in L.A.
The spirit was that of workers everywhere: All for One and One for All! An Injury to One is an Injury to All! The demonstrations were successful in broadening participation and bringing together organizations from the various fronts of the fight for rights, including anti-war, community and religious groups and unions. As one, people are rejecting efforts to use immigration to divide and criminalize the peoples and instead vigorously defending the rights of all. All of the actions are contributing toward even broader mobilization and united actions on May Day, in L.A., Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, NYC, Washington, DC and 100 other cities and counting.
Indymedia in L.A. reports: “The turnout for the April 7th legalization-for-immigrants march was inspiring and awesome: The river of people on Broadway flowed on and on. There were disciplined contingents with thousands and thousands of marchers.
“The crowd overflowed onto the sidewalk and was so large at Olympic and Broadway that hundreds walking south on Broadway to join the march could not get through the mass of people congregated at the “beginning” of the march.
“The “giant” has re-awakened and put to route any thought that its energy was spent. The marchers were saying and demonstrating that no more will the “Mexicanos,” “Salvadoreños,” “Guatemaltecos,” and others in the crowd be forced to live in the shadows, or gratefully accept punitive “guest worker” or similar programs being proposed.
“The crowd was disciplined, purposeful, and enthusiastically roaring “¡Sí se puede!” “It can be done!” or the ever popular call and response with the questioner using a megaphone and the crowd thunderously responding: “¿Qué queremos? “¡Legalización! ¿Cuándo la queremos? ¡Ahora!” (What do we want? Legalization! When do we want it? Now!)
“Some groups had dramatic, brightly colored banners that stretched across Broadway: “Legalización. ¡Ya!” or “¡Alto a las Redadas!” (Legalization Now! No to the Raids!) There was a 30 by 40 ft. quilt made up of flags from dozens of countries. A Brazilian man and others carried a 15 by 25 foot banner reading: ‘The sun shines on all people.’”
No One is Illegal!Defend the Rights of All!
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A showdown is developing between people’s democracy and the tyranny of the ICE age. Let’s break the ICE. Let’s turn up the heat and melt the ICE. (ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, responsible for the government’s raids, mass detentions and deportation of immigrants.) We are organizing a march from the steps of the Texas capital in Austin to the Hutto prison camp. We will start on April 13 and arrive in Taylor, Texas, at the Hutto concentration camp for families of immigrants on April 15. We are organizing a vigil there to demand the release of the families.
We declare the Hutto concentration camp a shame to this country and to the good name of us all. This prison camp houses over 400 human beings from 30 different countries. More than half of them are children, and many are asylum seekers. The conditions in which these human beings are being warehoused are nothing short of criminal, with children and adults subjected to the type of dehumanizing and abusive conditions seen in the worst jails and prison camps. The owner of the Hutto prison camp, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) is receiving taxpayers’ hard-earned money to incarcerate the innocent, creating a criminal alliance between private and public power brokers. This corruption endangers us all, for democracy and human rights are at stake.
We the People are announcing to the good people of Texas, the United States, and the whole world, that we will not stand for the imprisonment of innocent children, women and men.
We the People are announcing to everyone that this is a showdown between democracy and the forces of corporate and ideological fascism. We are a group of concerned human beings from all walks of life and the ideological spectrum, fully determined to expose the collusion of government and corporate interests, resulting in a criminal conspiracy betraying our nation and humanity.
We the People declare to the good people of Texas, the United States and the whole world that we will not stand idly while the White House, Michael Chertoff and the Homeland Security/ICE machinery, in collusion with secretive and ruthless corporate interests, conspire to make scandalous profits off the backs of the innocent, as well as create a climate of political fear where basic civil liberties are revoked with impunity.
We the People declare our unwavering intent to liberate our brothers and sisters, young and old. We will liberate those that came to this country in search of a better life, only to find themselves warehoused in prison-for-profit concentration camps. We declare it a crime against humanity to incarcerate those who are undocumented and/or asylum seekers, but who are labeled by Homeland Security “illegals” or “terrorists.”
We the People declare to the good people of Texas, the United States and the whole world that this crime is being addressed in the open and that we will remain committed, personally and resolved, until the day that these children and families are liberated. We will be relentless until the Hutto children's concentration camp, as well as other such shameful places are shut down and those complicit for their creation, funding and operation, are brought to justice.
Right now, HCR 64 is the resolution introduced by Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, co-authored by Rep. Anchia, and sponsored by l7 other representatives of the Texas legislature to free the children in Hutto. This bill is languishing, willfully stalled by the State Affairs Committee Chair, David Swinford, a self avowed “right wing nut,” and other cynical committee members. This outrage will not stand, as we demand HCR 64 to be open to public hearings and presented to the floor of the Legislature, so that all our elected leaders be able to take a stand on this issue.
We the People make a conscious stand to free the children and demand human rights for all.
We the People declare: That the prison-for-profit incarceration of innocent immigrants is an issue that transcends all national, racial, religious, ethnic, political, language or cultural divides, as there are victims of all such backgrounds imprisoned right here in Texas for profit.
That we need for everyone, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or political persuasion, language or culture unite for the liberation of children and families, and for the closure of such concentration camps.
That we will hold all who are complicit in the imprisonment of innocent people fully accountable for the abuse of these innocents. All those covering up and profiting from this shame, be forewarned.
That we demand a public hearing of HCR 64: The people want the Legislature to know where we stand and we want to know where our elected representatives stand regarding the imprisonment of innocent children.
That our future as a democratic society is at stake and in peril.
That we say No to government concentration camps. We say No to prisons run by corporations such as Emerald, CCA, KBR, MTC and whatever other entity that operates for profits. We oppose concentration camps that deny innocent children their inalienable rights.
Contact Numbers: Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr., 830 768-0768; Dorinda Moreno, Media, 805 934-3884
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ACLU Challenges the Hutto Detention Center
On March 6, 2007, the national ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, and the University of Texas School of Law Immigration Clinic filed ten lawsuits in federal court in Austin, Texas, to challenge the federal government’s policy of illegally detaining children from around the world at the T. Don Hutto detention center, a converted medium-security prison, in Taylor, Texas.
The ten plaintiffs are children, ages three to sixteen, who are from Lithuania, Canada, Haiti, Guyana, Somalia, and Honduras. Many of them have fled persecution, war, and devastation in their home countries. Many of their parents are seeking asylum, and have been found by trained asylum officers to have credible fears of persecution. One of the plaintiffs, a 13-year-old girl, has been detained at the Hutto facility for 176 days and counting.
The lawsuit targets Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and six officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) all responsible for illegally detaining about 200 children at the Hutto facility.
The lawsuit brings out that use of the Hutto facility to detain children and families directly contravenes the expressed intent of Congress. In 2005, 2006, and 2007, Congress directed DHS to keep immigrant families together, and to do so by either releasing such families pending resolution of the immigrant status of a parent (a civil not criminal offense) or to use alternatives to detention.
The fact that unjust government detention is a longstanding problem can be seen in the laws already established. Existing law requires that families not be detained. In January 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice entered into a settlement agreement in Flores v. Meese, No. 85-cv-4544 (C.D. Cal.). The Flores settlement established minimum standards and conditions for the housing and release of all minors in federal immigration custody. Recognizing the particular vulnerability of children in detention, the settlement requires the federal government to:
• Actively and continuously seek the release of each child in its custody unless the detention of the child is necessary to secure his or her appearance in court or to secure his or her safety;
• Place those children who must be detained in the least restrictive setting appropriate for their ages and special needs; and,
• Provide essential benefits and services to detained children, including suitable living conditions; suitable food; appropriate medical, dental, and mental health care; adequate educational services; and discipline which does not have adverse psychological consequences.
The detention of children at the Hutto facility violates virtually every provision of the Flores settlement. Hutto is structurally and functionally a prison. Children are required to wear prison garb. Some children did not go outdoors in the fresh air the entire month of December 2006. They are detained in small cells for about 11 or 12 hours each day, prohibited from keeping food, writing implements, and toys in their cells, and hardly have any privacy. Despite their urgent needs, they lack access to adequate medical, dental, and mental health treatment, and are denied adequate educational opportunities. Guards frequently discipline children by threatening to separate them permanently from their parents.
The government has humane and cost-effective alternatives to detention that would satisfy the law. In addition to releasing the families, these include (1) the Intensive Supervision Assistance Program (“ISAP”), a program that utilizes electronic monitoring as a way to supervise immigrants released into the community, and for which Congress specifically allocated funding; (2) Casa San Juan, a 24-hour care facility run by Catholic Charities in San Diego, with which the U.S. Marshal Service has a contract; and (3) Casa Marianella, a refugee home in Austin, Texas.
The lawsuit seeks to enforce the Flores settlement, to secure each child’s release to her parent, and to ensure that she is not separated from her parent and siblings.[TOP]
Oppose Government Disinformation
“Immigrants Bring Crime” Is a Myth
President George W. Bush, in his speech promoting his plans for new immigration laws, tried to justify criminalizing immigrants and militarizing the border with the claim that immigrants bring crime to communities. This is also the justification given for a federal program to train local and state law enforcement agencies to “identify” undocumented workers and their families, arrest them and turn them over for detention and deportation. As one of the local police agencies opposing the effort put it, how can this identification be done without racial profiling? How can we expect communities to report crime when our job is to turn them and their children into criminals? The article below speaks to the myth that immigrants bring crime.
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Among the many troubling aspects of the public debate over immigration is the power of myths over facts. One of the most enduring myths about immigration, despite literally decades of evidence to the contrary, is the belief that immigrants are more likely to commit crime than the native-born.
This myth is so widespread and unquestioned that it has been the catalyst for scores of local governments to consider anti-immigrant ordinances over the past year. These calls to crack down on undocumented immigrants, the employers who hire them and the landlords who rent to them, are framed in part as “anti-crime” ordinances.
The city council of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, for instance, passed an ordinance last September claiming that “illegal immigration leads to higher crime rates” and that the council therefore must protect legal residents of the city from “crimes committed by illegal aliens.”
Because most of the undocumented immigrants in Hazleton and other communities throughout the United States are young men from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and elsewhere in Latin America, who have little money or formal education, it is assumed that they are more likely to commit crimes than the native-born.
Government and academic studies, however, have demonstrated repeatedly for more than a century that immigrants actually are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born. Even though immigration has increased dramatically over the past decade and a half, the crime rate in the United States has declined.
Since 1994, the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States has more than doubled to 12 million. Immigrants, both legal and undocumented, now comprise just under 13 percent of the population. Yet, according to the FBI, between 1994 and 2005 the violent crime rate (murder, robbery, rape, assault) fell 34.2 percent and the property crime rate (burglary, theft) dropped 26.4 percent.
Cities with large and growing immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Chicago also experienced this downward trend in crime. If immigration—either legal or undocumented—were associated with crime, then crime rates should be rising.
An upcoming report from the Immigration Policy Center further dispels the notion that immigration and crime are connected. Using data from the 2000 Census, the report shows that immigrants are less likely than the native-born to be behind bars. Among men age 18 to 39 (who comprise the vast majority of inmates in federal and state prisons and local jails), immigrants were five times less likely to be incarcerated than the native-born in 2000.
About 3.5 percent of native-born men were in prison, compared with 0.7 percent of foreign-born men. Immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala were much less likely to be in prison than native-born, non-Hispanic whites. Roughly 0.7 percent of foreign-born Mexican men and 0.5 percent of foreign-born Salvadoran and Guatemalan men were in prison, compared with 1.7 percent of native-born, non-Hispanic white men.
These findings are not new. Three government commissions investigated the relationship between immigration and crime during the last era of large-scale immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when millions of immigrants arrived from Italy, Ireland, Russia, Poland, and other nations in Europe. All three commissions came to the same conclusion: immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than natives.
As the [Dillingham] Immigration Commission of 1911 concluded: “No satisfactory evidence has yet been produced to show that immigration has resulted in an increase in crime disproportionate to the increase in adult population. Such comparable statistics of crime and population as it has been possible to obtain indicate that immigrants are less prone to commit crime than are native Americans.”
Despite a century’s worth of evidence that immigration does not breed crime, the stereotype of immigrants as criminals continues to flourish in the media and among policymakers. Popular movies and television shows often feature gun-wielding, drug-dealing criminals from south of the border. News reports of violent crimes committed by gangs such as the Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) often overshadow the fact that an extraordinarily small number of immigrants are in gangs and that gangs are found in every ethnic group among both natives and the foreign-born.
Adding insult to injury, many politicians regularly declare their resolve to stem the criminal tide allegedly unleashed by undocumented immigrants. Even President George W. Bush, who favors immigration reform that creates more legal channels for immigration to the United States, declared in a May 15, 2006 address to the nation that illegal immigration “brings crime to our communities.”
There is no denying that crime is a serious problem in the United States. But it is not a problem created or even aggravated by immigration. Quite the opposite, in fact. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes of all types than the native-born. This suggests that crime is linked not to one’s place of birth, but to the many other forces which foster crime in this country, especially in relatively poor communities. The solution to crime does not lie in immigration policy. And the solution to undocumented immigration does not lie in misguided “get tough” policies that scapegoat immigrants as criminals.
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California-Mexico Border Area
Blackwater Mercenaries Planning Border Camp
Blackwater USA, notorious as a government mercenary force in Iraq and in New Orleans after Katrina, is now planning a “training camp” on the US-Mexico border. An 824-acre camp is planned in a rural area, near the small town of Potrero, California, in San Diego County. Given the character of Blackwater, the camp will no doubt be used for training terrorists for actions inside the U.S., along the border and likely more broadly as well.
The planned camp is close to an area where undocumented workers cross the border, and also near a wilderness area. According to Blackwater, it will have 60-100 former military personnel who will train up to 300 people in firearms, urban assault techniques and other skills. If opened, the facility is expected to include a mock “combat town” for urban warfare, an armory, 15 shooting ranges, a track for high-speed driving classes, a helicopter-landing pad, and dormitories.
There was no immediate word about the possible missions of graduates from a future Blackwater US-Mexico border camp but activists in San Diego and nationwide see development of the camp as consistent with government plans to build concentration camps for 20,000, criminalize undocumented workers and those that support them, and increase terrorism against people inside the U.S.
Blackwater defines itself as the "most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping and stability operations company in the world." The example of what is meat by “peacekeeping” and “stability” can be seen in its mercenary role in Iraq, where it is getting hundreds of millions of dollars in government funds. Blackwater forces are known as the ones who do the “dirty work” of massacres, assassination, torture and similar crimes the army does not want to do openly. They are not bound by the military code of conduct and generally are seen as an army for hire to carry out whatever terrorism the government dictates.
The majority of the people of Potrero, a town of about 900 people, are opposing the camp. A petition has been circulated demanding that the government not approve the camp. It has already been signed by about half the registered voters. In addition, anti-war activists, environmentalists and many others are joining residents in opposing Blackwater. Two hundred people lined the streets at a recent meeting in San Diego of San Diego County’s Department of Planning and Land Use, which has to approve the plan. People nationwide join the people of the area in demanding No Camp and No Public Dollars for Blackwater!
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