Assata Shakur is a Hero, not a Terrorist

Eugene Puryear

On May 2, the Federal Bureau of Investigation suddenly announced that they had placed Assata Shakur on its “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, making her the first woman to be so designated. The state of New Jersey also raised the bounty on her head to $2 million. These government actions came on the 40th anniversary of the shoot-out in which police allege that Shakur killed an officer.

It is clear that these are the vindictive attempts of the Empire still outraged that a rebel could escape, survive outside its reach, and continue to expose its long history of exploitation and oppression. The recent provocations are part of a long-term smear campaign by the U.S. government to erase her revolutionary legacy.

The FBI’s accusations target Shakur as an individual, but the labeling of her as a terrorist is an attack on all revolutionaries.

Shakur has been living in exile in Cuba for the last 29 years. So what changed in the recent days and weeks to now put her on the “Most Wanted Terrorists” list? The FBI presented no evidence against her and revealed no terrorist plots. Assata’s real crime, FBI spokesman Aaron Ford said, was that from Cuba she continues to “maintain and promote her … ideology” and “provides anti-U.S. government speeches espousing the Black Liberation Army message”—an ideology and message that the U.S. government has declared “terrorism.”

In other words, President Obama’s and Eric Holder’s FBI is charging Shakur with a political crime, the advocacy of revolutionary politics and Black liberation as “terroristic” and “criminal.” According to the outrageous “War on Terror” legal doctrines currently employed in Washington, she could be targeted for assassination. In addition, the designation of Shakur as a terrorist helps them justify the targeting of socialist Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”

The defense of Assata Shakur is therefore part and parcel of a general defense of the right to espouse revolutionary politics, of Black liberation and of free speech more generally.

‘I wanted a name that had something to do with struggle’

Assata Shakur was born JoAnne Chesimard, and her change in name was reflective of her desire to fully identify with the revolutionary struggles of her African heritage. Assata means “she who struggles,” her middle name Olugbala means “love for the people,“ and her last name Shakur was taken in honor of her comrade Zayd Shakur.

It is no surprise that the U.S. government now seeks to further criminalize Shakur. In fact, it is just the latest extension of the government’s counter-revolutionary COINTELPRO initiative waged against the Black liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, the U.S. government was so fearful of the growth of revolutionary movements that J. Edgar Hoover even declared the Black Panther Party, of which Shakur was a member, the “greatest internal threat” facing the ruling class. It used a wide range of tactics, all the way up to assassinations of leaders, to disrupt this radical movement.

It must be recalled that the government described much of the political activity of the era—in the anti-war movement, the Black freedom movement, the fight for independence of Puerto Rico, and solidarity with revolutionary Cuba, among others struggles—as explicitly criminal.

Of course, while they were locking up and killing activists and revolutionaries within the country, the U.S. government was engaged in a wide-ranging brutal and murderous campaign in Southeast Asia. They were dealing cosmetically with the terrible conditions of poverty and class oppression inside the United States, while deploying troops to suppress growing rebellions among oppressed Black, Latino and Native peoples. They were launching coups in multiple nations. They were attempting—and sometimes succeeding—in assassinating revolutionary leaders. They were backing apartheid and Portuguese colonialism in Africa.

When Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that the U.S. government was the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” he laid bare the essence of the “American Century.”

It was in this world context, which in its core features is unchanged today, that Assata Shakur grew up. Millions took part in the growing movements against the injustices of the U.S. government and Shakur was one of those millions. As a college student, Shakur did not use her degree as an “escape valve” to distance herself from the mass of poor, oppressed and exploited people. Instead, she joined—body and soul—in the fight for their collective liberation.

Out of the mass movement in the United States, a wing emerged that advocated for various forms of armed struggle as a way to expedite the revolutionary movement and give solidarity to peoples of the Third World. Assata was part of this trend—and she and her comrades were targeted for severe repression, often framed and incarcerated under false pretenses.

Assata Shakur is not guilty

Shakur was falsely convicted of having killed an officer on May 2, 1973. While driving on the New Jersey Turnpike, Assata, Zayd Shakur, and Sundiata Acoli were stopped by state troopers, allegedly for having a “faulty taillight.” A shootout ensued where one state trooper killed Zayd Shakur, and another trooper, Werner Foerster, ended up dead. Shakur was charged with both murders, despite the fact that the other trooper, James Harper, admitted he killed Zayd Shakur.

Assata had been, following police instructions, standing with her hands in the air, when she was shot by Trooper Harper more than once, including a bullet to the back. Trooper Harper lied and said he had seen Shakur reach for a gun, a claim he later recanted. He also claimed she had been in a firing position, something a surgeon who examined her said was “anatomically impossible.” The same surgeon said it was “anatomically necessary” for her arms to have been raised for her to receive the bullet wounds she did. Tests done by the police found that Shakur had not fired a gun, and no physical or medical evidence was presented by the prosecution to back up their claim that she had fired a gun at Trooper Harper.

While she was in trial proceedings, the state attempted to pin six other serious crimes on her, alleging she had carried out bank robberies, kidnappings and attempted killings. She was acquitted three times, two were dismissed and one resulted in a hung jury.

Shukur was put on trial in a county where because of pre-trial publicity 70 percent of people thought she was guilty, and she was judged by an all-white jury. Without any physical evidence to present, the prosecution had to rely totally on false statements and innuendo aimed at playing on the prejudices of the jury pool against Black people, political radicals, and Black revolutionaries in particular. Finally, after years behind bars, the state secured her conviction for the Turnpike shooting.

Terrorism double-standard and potential of assassination

Being placed on this Most Wanted Terrorist list means that hypothetically Shakur could be targeted for assassination. The legal white paper released by the Obama administration around the confirmation of CIA Director John Brennan stated that the United States would pay no attention to another nation’s sovereignty in choosing targets who they deem to be “terrorists.” The massive expansion of the security powers and the methods used in the “War on Terror” are being fashioned to target revolutionary militants.

Placing Shakur on the Most Wanted Terrorists list is also a significant attack on Cuba. On May 1, 2013, the United States refused to remove Cuba from the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list. The next day, Assata became a “Most Wanted Terrorist.” By claiming that Cuba supports “terrorism” and is harboring a “terrorist,” the government provides itself with a pretext to continue the illegal blockade of Cuba and starve the revolution of trade.

Further, the United States does absolutely nothing to apprehend, convict or punish in any way the violent anti-Cuba groups who routinely and openly boast from U.S. soil of planning terrorist attacks on Cuba. Despite having killed thousands of Cubans, none of these organizations or individuals have ever been placed on America’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists.”

For instance, Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative who currently walks free in Miami, publicly admitted to The New York Times that he had engaged in a campaign of fatal hotel bombings in Cuba. In 1976, Posada was a key figure in the bombing of a Cuban airliner where 73 people perished. In 2000, Posada was caught attempting to set up a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro as he spoke to university students in Panama. If successful, the attack would have killed hundreds.

Threat to political prisoner solidarity work

Ominously, by criminalizing Assata Shakur, the government has also taken a step towards criminalizing the broader movement in support of political prisoners. Many political prisoners in this country have also been alleged to be members of the Black Liberation Army. If Shakur is a terrorist simply for giving speeches in support of the BLA, what about those convicted of crimes alleged to have taken place while they were members? Will political prisoner support groups now be targeted as “supporters of terrorism” or “terrorists” themselves?

The new attacks on Shakur aim to have a chilling effect on those who seek to express their support for political prisoners. This is especially true when one considers that drone strikes and indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay are the typical U.S. responses to those accused of terrorism.

The placement of Assata Shakur on the Most Wanted Terrorist list is another example that the U.S. government, and the capitalist class it represents, will go to any length to intimidate, repress and defeat potential threats.

Because Shakur remains a symbol of resistance, and is unrepentant in her politics, the government will never stop their attempts to smear, kidnap or kill her. But millions of people know the truth. Her legacy cannot be whitewashed or dismissed; it cannot be distorted. So even though she is in Cuba, the government remains afraid of her example. They know that while decades have passed, the conditions still exist to give birth to a million Assata Shakurs.

Cuba’s Impeccable Human Rights Record

“Few Governments Have Done as Much For Their People as Cuba”

Granma Internacional

The Cuban Foreign Affairs Ministry submitted, on April 23, its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) to the United Nations Human Rights Council, to be reviewed by the UN on May 1 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The document reports on the situation in Cuba, its legal framework and the human rights programs available for the benefit of all. At its center are the recommendations accepted by Cuba in 2009, in the first round of the UPR, a process with which all 193 UN member states are required to comply, according to Vice Minister Abelardo Moreno.

Many state, government and civil organizations contributed in drafting the report, Moreno added during a videoconference with Geneva, also attended by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marcelino Medina, and representatives from the diplomatic delegation which will present the report before the UN.

“The main violation of human rights in Cuba is the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the United States, which is an act of genocide,” expressed the Deputy Minister. However, he said, the country has succeeded in fulfilling a large number of Millennium Development Goals and scores highly in terms of human development.

“Few governments have done so much for their people as Cuba, since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, despite enormous obstacles,” he added after condemning the media campaigns which ignore or distort the country’s achievements, causing a negative impact on the Human Rights Council. Moreno also criticized terrorism promoted, organized and led by the United States, the recruiting of agents who attempt to destroy the Cuban constitutional system, acting contrary to the people’s right to self-determination, national security and integrity.

The Cuban UPR report, which was distributed to the press, highlights many achievements including in the areas of education, health, culture, sports, food, social security, religious freedom, treatment of prisoners, and gender equality.

***

Granma Internacional

Cuba is honored to present its second National Report to the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism. It does so proud of its humanistic work and its achievements in guaranteeing the exercise of all human rights for all its citizens.

The economic, political and media blockade imposed by the United States, which Cuba has resisted, undefeated, for more than 50 years, is a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights which provokes damage, shortages and suffering, but it has not detained the country’s equal opportunities, equity in the distribution of wealth, or social justice.

Persistent efforts on the part of the United States to impose a “regime change” on Cuba are a serious violation of the nation’s right to self-determination. These efforts have been unable to prevent the active, democratic and direct participation of its citizens in the construction of constitutional order, in government decisions and in the election of its authorities.

Before this Council is a country without homeless persons or people deprived of dignity, in which no child lacks an education of quality, the sick enjoy sterling medical attention and the elderly social protection. A nation in which the rights of workers, farmers, intellectuals and students are protected by law. A country with citizens’ security, without organized crime, or drugs. Before this Council is a united people, with profound social cohesion. A state in which no one has been executed without trial, tortured or disappeared, and there are no kidnappings or secret prisons.

This exercise coincides with International Workers’ Day, joyfully celebrated in Cuba’s plazas and streets by millions of compatriots and hundreds of friends from all over the world. They do so as free women and men, in defense of rights that have been won. They are not masses of justly angry people, workers on strike, students besieged by education costs and debt, immigrants persecuted by self-interest, racism and xenophobia. We offer our solidarity to all those fighting – everywhere on the planet – for human rights for all, for peace, for development, for the survival of humanity, threatened by colossal military arsenals and climate change.

Mr. President:

This report is the result of a wide-ranging and participative consultation process which involved countless government institutions, Parliament, civil society organizations and other relevant institutions.

The follow up on the recommendations accepted in the first UPR cycle was the principal objective of the work of the National Group, which coordinated the process and prepared the report.

From Cuba’s first presentation to this mechanism in 2009 through today, significant changes have taken place in the economy and society. Advances have been made in the institutional perfection process, greater citizens’ participation and control as a fundamental aspect of our democracy, and the undertaking to achieve sustainable development with social justice has been maintained.

Cuba remains committed to its irrevocable decision to advance its socialist, national, original, democratic and freely participative socialist development.

We did not come here to present a completed task, nor do we pretend that the Cuban socialist model should be considered for anyone or everyone. Nor do we accept that there is a unique or universal model of democracy, and far less the imposition of the political system of Western industrialized countries which have entered into crisis. We likewise reject the political manipulation, hypocrisy and double standards frequently present in the debate on human rights issues.

Mr. President:

One of the most significant events since the previous session is the adoption by the National Assembly of People’s Power of the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines, which constitute a body of decisions essential to the updating of the Cuban economic and social model and a government program.

The guidelines were adopted after an extremely wide-ranging popular debate in which millions of Cuban women and men formulated, with total freedom, more than 400,000 amendments modifying two thirds of the draft document, and voted on each one of its 12 chapters. This was a unique experience of citizens’ direct popular consultation in order to reach consensus on government economic, monetary and social policies, in con junction with measures to overcome the effects of the global economic crisis and problems of the Cuban economy without neoliberal austerity formulas, without saving banks at the cost of unjust social cuts.

Cuba has continued strengthening the democratic nature of its institutionality with laws, policies and programs of a popular and participative nature, in accordance with the people’s aspirations.

New regulations have been adopted to expand the legislative base of human rights, such as those related to social security, housing, employment and exclusively self-employed work, the granting of land in usufruct, among others. In parallel, advances are being made in perfecting and updating the country’s legal system, by implementing a number of modifications responding to the needs of Cuban society and the highest international standards in this context.

Outstanding among these amendments is the Migration and Travel Act, which has had a notable impact and has benefited the Cuban nation’s relations with its émigré community, despite constant manipulation of the migration issue.

Mr. President:

The legal system for the protection of human rights in Cuba is not confined to their constitutional drafting. The system is duly developed and implemented in other substantive, procedural regulations, in accordance with rights recognized in the Universal Declaration and other international human rights instruments.

Cuba has made significant advances in the realization of economic, social and cultural rights. Education has is universally accessible and is free of charge at all levels of teaching.

Through its various programs, the Cuban state guarantees every girl, boy and young adult the possibility and right to study within the National Education System and to continue in their education as far as their aptitudes and efforts allow them, with equality of opportunity. The First Vice President of the Council of State and Ministers was invested with the responsibility to protect and supervise children’s rights.

The right to education is assured for every child and young adult with any kind of mental or physical disability through the Special Education Program, in cases where the full integration of differently-abled children in general educational institutions is not possible. Attention is given to these children throughout the country in different forms and at all levels of teaching.

In the most recent UNESCO World Report on the follow-up of Education for All (2012), Cuba appears in 16th place, given its educational development indices. UNESCO recognized Cuba as the Latin American and Caribbean country to direct the highest proportion of its national budget to education.

Under the Martí doctrine of “being educated in order to be free,” Cuba is outstanding in terms of its cultural development, its population’s full access to art and literature, for the preservation and defense of our culture and the enrichment of our spiritual values.

Cuba is equally recognized for its outstanding results and the high quality of its public health system, with universal coverage and free medical attention. With an infant mortality rate of 4.6 per 1,000 live births, Cuba has established indicators higher than those of many industrialized countries. With one doctor for every 137 inhabitants, Cuba is – according to the World Health Organization – the most endowed nation in this sector.

From 2009 through 2011, 19,371 mothers of children with severe disabilities received social security protection, thus giving them the possibility of personally caring for their children.

Attention to older adults is a priority and for that reason, multidisciplinary and cross-sector work is underway to guarantee quality of life for this growing population sector. Life expectancy at birth stands at an average of 78 years. In the next decade, more than 87% of Cubans will have exceeded 60 years of age.

Rights to life, freedom and personal security are sustained by the principle of respect for human dignity and constitute pillars in the conduct of Cuban authorities and the functioning of the entire society.

The five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters who are enduring unjust and long prison terms in the United States lack protection. They were tried without guarantees of due process, in an atmosphere of revenge and hatred, under a slanderous press campaign paid for by the District Attorney’s Office, subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, impediments to their legal defense, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and a number of them have been deprived of visits from their families.

We are deeply concerned at the legal impasse which is sustaining the permanent and atrocious violation of human rights occurring on the illegal Guantánamo Naval Base, Cuban territory usurped by the United States, a center of torture and deaths in custody, where 166 detainees have been held for 10 years, without guarantees, a trial or defense. Currently, 100 of them are on hunger strike, with 17 of these, whose lives are in danger, being force fed through tubes. This prison and military base must be closed and this territory returned to Cuba.

Cuba recognizes, respects and guarantees religious freedoms without discrimination of any kind.

Approximately 400 religions and religious institutions exist in the country.

The freedoms of opinion, expression, access to information and the press are recognized for all citizens. The high educational and cultural level of the people; the social and public nature of communications media; the inexistence of giant for-profit media corporations which in other places impose economic and political interests; the absence of generally stultifying commercial publicity; and the exercise of popular power, all facilitate the material conditions which allow for the enjoyment of these freedoms.

The right to truthful information, free of charge, should be guaranteed by the state. The democratization of internet, the transference of resources and technology appropriate for social communication, is an urgent need. The technological and content monopoly; the political and military use of networks; linguistic and cultural discrimination must be ended. The digital gap must be closed.

The blockade prevents Cuba from connecting to nearby underwater cables, making services more expensive and access for the population more difficult. It prohibits international providers from supplying Cuba with services, software and technology. Our country is denied, for example, diverse Google services and access to international digital platforms.

Between 2010 and 2013, the United States has, as well, allocated 191.7 million dollars to finance organizations, paid agents, the subversive use of information technology and illegal radio and television broadcasts promoting regime change in Cuba. Additionally, millions more are channeled through special services and private groups. Some U.S. allies participate in this effort.

Mr. President:

In Cuba, equality and non-discriminatory policies are fully guaranteed. Advances in terms of gender equality are outstanding. The Cuban government continues to implement numerous laws, policies and programs directed toward reaffirming these.

The percentage of Cuban women in the National Assembly of People’s Power, our Parliament, has reached 48.86%. Cuba occupies second place on a world scale in terms of the percentage of female parliamentarians. For the first time, two women are now Council of State Vice Presidents, and women constitute 41.9% of this body. A third of our ministries are headed by women.

Institutional racism has been eradicated, ample opportunities for development and concrete benefits are provided for less favored sectors, and we are struggling to assure complete, effective equality of opportunity to sectors historically marginalized and to dysfunctional families. Not yet overcome are certain racial prejudices and stereotypes surviving from slavery during our colonial past and a neocolonial regime which institutionalized racism and racial segregation.

Complementary to government efforts and full protection under the law, a decision was made to assign a Council of State Vice President the task of following up on and supervising the struggle against racism and racial discrimination.

We are proud of our African heritage. We share, in a disinterested fashion, the fate of our African brothers and sisters in their battle against colonialism and apartheid.

Another area in which sustained progress is being made is the struggle against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The National Sexual Education Program has incorporated an ongoing educational strategy promoting respect for all sexual orientations and gender identities, establishing multiple opportunities for exchange based on the principles of equality and non-discrimination.

In relation to the promotion and protection of the rights of disabled persons, we have assured that the majority are able to access education and join the workforce. Support is offered in diverse arenas of social activity.

Mr. President:

Cuba’s penitentiary system is based on the principle of human betterment. Cuba fulfils all precepts of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and prioritizes a preventative focus through a number of social programs, among them those directed toward converting prisons into educational centers.

All inmates are guaranteed medical and dental attention free of charge, under the same conditions as the rest of Cuba’s population. They receive a wage commensurate with the work they perform.

In Cuba, 27,000,095 inmates, approximately half of the total, are studying at different levels in every penal institution in the country. Many of them are additionally learning a trade. This educational system has supported inmates’ reintegration into society and the workforce.

Mr. President:

Despite shortages and difficulties, in a disinterested fashion, our people have shared and share what we have with other nations, offering solidarity to contribute to the realization of human rights of other peoples around the world.

Since 2004, tens of thousands of citizens have regained their sight through Operation Miracle and 2.4 million ophthalmologic surgeries have been performed in 34 Latin American, Caribbean and African countries.

Since 2005, the (Henry Reeve) International Contingent of Doctors Specializing in Disaster and Serious Epidemic Situations has offered medical assistance to more than three million affected persons.

Cooperation with Haiti, a sister Caribbean country in need of resources for reconstruction and development, has been maintained. More than 12,000 Cuban collaborators have worked there.

Beginning in 2004, cooperation has expanded in literacy learning and development through the Cuban programs Yes, I can (UNESCO King Sejong Prize), I can read and write now and Yes, I can do more. As of November, 2012, 6.9 million people had completed the basic Yes I can literacy program and 976,000 had completed Yes, I can do more.

Mr. President:

Cuba maintains a high level of cooperation and interaction within procedures and structures established by the United Nations in terms of human rights, which are universally applicable, on a non-discriminatory basis.

We have always demonstrated out unequivocal openness to dialogue on all issues, with all states, on the basis of mutual respect, sovereign equality and recognition of the right to self-determination.

Cuba has established a positive dialogue with bodies created in accordance with international treaties in the area of human rights.

Since 2009, five National Reports have been prepared; three of which have been presented before the respective committees. Currently in the final stages of revision are Cuba’s Initial Report in accordance with the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of Children in relation to the sale of children, child prostitution and the use of children in pornography; as well as our Initial Report in compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons.

Cuba is a signatory to 42 international human rights treaties and has complied with all of their stipulations. Other human rights instruments, including two Pacts, are being studied by relevant authorities.

Our country maintains cooperative relations with diverse humanitarian and human rights organizations throughout the world, both within our own territory and in the development of collaborative missions internationally.

Mr. President:

We are open to constructive, respectful dialogue which adheres to the facts. We will provide necessary information and clarifications.

Thank you very much.

Mariela Castro: Socialism & LGBT Rights

Cuban Revolution Combats Homophobia, Sexism, Racism

LeiLani Dowell

An inspiring and electrifying meeting was held at the Solidarity Center in New York City on April 25 featuring Mariela Castro Espín, the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) in Havana, Cuba, and a deputy of the Cuban parliament, the National Assembly of People’s Power. The meeting was sponsored by the International Action Center. Due to security concerns and limited seating, it was an invitations-only meeting.

The multinational, multigenerational crowd — which included members of the LGBTQ+, Latin American, and African-American communities — was moved to tears by the momentous gains in Cuba, described by Castro Espín, in combatting homophobia, transphobia and sexism, as well as racism. Castro Espín stressed that these issues are, above all, class issues, and that her country continues to fight for equality on all levels. She also praised the efforts of the U.S. activists in the crowd, saying she felt very much at home with those at the meeting.  Pro-Cuban revolutionary posters and banners encircled the office.

Comments from the floor showed the depth of respect, love and solidarity for Castro Espín and the Cuban revolution. Lucy Pagoada of Honduras USA Resistencia described how the Cuban revolution served to inspire the resistance in Honduras and throughout Latin America to continue, and the exciting integration and unity of those struggles.

Nieves Ayress from La Peña del Bronx, who survived torture under the fascistic Pinochet regime in Chile during the early 1970s and Marina Diaz, a Guatemalan activist from the May 1 Coalition also paid tribute to Castro and the Cuban revolution.

Black activist, Brenda Stokely, a leader of the Million Worker March Movement, publicly thanked Cuba for providing political asylum to Assata Shakur.

A member of TransJustice, a program of the Audre Lorde Project that fights for the rights of transgender and gender-non-conforming people of color in the U.S., said that CENESEX seemed like a “paradise” for their constituents. Among many projects undertaken in support of the transgender community in Cuba, Castro Espín and CENESEX pushed for legislation allowing transgender people in Cuba to receive hormones and gender reassignment surgeries free of charge. The law was passed in June of 2008.

Solidarity messages were also delivered from Leslie Feinberg, a member of Workers World Party and a world-renowned author and activist for LGBTQ+ rights, and IAC founder and former U.S. attorney general, Ramsey Clark.

Teresa Gutierrez, IAC co-director, urged everyone to “get on the bus” for a June 1st protest in Washington, D.C., in support of the Cuban Five, five Cuban heroes unjustly imprisoned in U.S. federal prisons for attempting to protect their country from terrorist attacks. See thecuban5.org for more information and call 347-201-3728 for $5 round-trip bus tickets from New York to Washington, D.C.

Gutierrez went on to say, “The LGBTQ community here has made great strides and has even won the right of same-sex marriage in some states in the U.S. But what socialist Cuba has done for LGBTQ people has gone much further and is much deeper thanks to the building of socialism there.”

Castro Espín is also a member of the Direct Action Group for Preventing, Confronting, and Combatting AIDS, and director of the journal, Sexología y Sociedad.  She was denied the right to travel to Philadelphia by the U.S. State Department to attend the Equality Forum 2013 Summit, a May 2-5 global LGBTQ+ conference, where she was scheduled to receive an award.

Cuban diplomats are denied the right to travel beyond a 25-mile radius from within New York without permission from the U.S. government, another example of more than 50 years of U.S. government hostility exhibited against the sovereignty of the Cuban Revolution.

The writer, a LGBTQ+ activist, gave a welcoming to Castro Espín at the meeting.

Waco Massacre: We Will Not Forget

Workers Vanguard

April 19 marks the 20th anniversary of the government’s massacre of over 80 men, women and children of the integrated Branch Davidian religious sect outside Waco, Texas. For more than seven weeks, an array of police forces had laid siege to the Branch Davidian compound following a raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms aimed at arresting the group’s leader, David Koresh, on false charges of illegal weapons possession. The government was out for blood—and lots of it—after four Feds were killed in the initial assault, which took the life of a two-year-old girl and a number of church members. Finally, the state got its revenge through a massive attack that burned the compound to the ground, with the trapped members of the sect perishing in the inferno.

From the outset of the siege, the Spartacist League and Partisan Defense Committee—a class-struggle legal and social defense organization associated with the SL—protested the government vendetta against the Branch Davidians. On 8 March 1993, as tanks rolled into Waco, the PDC sent a protest to Democratic president Bill Clinton demanding that “all troops, tanks, police and federal agents be removed from the area.” The letter pointed out, “We think you would do well to take the advice of the newly elected President Lincoln, who when asked what he proposed to do about the polygamous Mormons replied, ‘I propose to let them alone’.”

Attorney General Janet Reno justified the assault by raising the spectre of “child abuse.” This was forcefully answered by Bob Buck, a West Virginia steel worker who had been railroaded to prison for defending his union on the picket line during a bitter 1991-92 strike. In a letter to the PDC, Buck wrote: “They were so damned concerned for the children they unleashed an armed assault on the house they lived in and filled it full of bullet holes;…gassed them, and ultimately burned them to death. Ain’t America great. I’m glad Mrs. Reno isn’t concerned about me.”

The SL and PDC protested the Waco holocaust outside federal offices in New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. Shamefully, the reformist left turned a blind eye to the atrocity or joined in blaming the victims, just as almost every one of them did when Philadelphia’s black Democratic mayor Wilson Goode ordered the bombing of the predominantly black MOVE commune in 1985. Our intention was, and is, to sear the memory of these acts of government mass murder into the consciousness of the working class, whose historic interest lies in revolutionary struggle to sweep away the murderous capitalist state.

We print below the bulk of the press release issued by the SL announcing the protest demonstrations, which began in Manhattan the day of the massacre.

*   *   *

The charred corpses of 87 men, women and children who perished in the firestorm resulting from the FBI’s barrage of CS gas, flash-grenades and battering rams are the direct responsibility of the White House. President Clinton gave the green light, Attorney General Janet Reno personally supervised the plan, and the FBI’s storm troopers moved in to carry out the government’s “final solution” against the small, integrated Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas. After a murderous raid by federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents armed to the teeth and a 51-day siege, almost a hundred people have now been subjected to a flaming apocalypse for the sole “crime” of being a non-conformist religious sect which dared to defend itself against government assault.

An SL spokesman, in condemning this outrage, noted that the Branch Davidians received the same death sentence meted out to the black MOVE commune in Philadelphia, bombed by the Philadelphia police on Mother’s Day (May 13) 1985, using C-4 plastic explosives donated by the FBI. Eleven black people were murdered there, including five children, and an entire black neighborhood was laid to waste. “Like the racist cop beating of L.A. black motorist Rodney King,” said Spartacist spokesman Marjorie Stamberg, “the Waco holocaust is the domestic image of America’s ‘New World Order.’ This is U.S. imperialism’s ‘Desert Slaughter’ in Iraq brought home.”

A banner outside the compound of the racially integrated Branch Davidian religious sect said, “Rodney King—We Understand.” It is no accident that the feds’ onslaught in Waco came two days after the slap-on-the-wrist verdict for two racist cops in L.A. With troops poised to occupy the inner cities coast to coast, amid a massive police-state mobilization, the racist rulers breathed a collective sigh of relief that the urban ghettos and barrios did not explode in outrage over another outright racist acquittal. They seized the moment to incinerate the Waco commune.

In the gray light of dawn, the FBI moved in the heavy artillery—M-60 Combat Engineering Vehicles, Bradley fighting vehicles and heat-seeking reconnaissance planes—in a bid to drive out or exterminate the 70 adults and 25 children still inside the wooden structure. The whole area had already been ringed with razor-sharp concertina wire. Electricity and water were cut off. The intent was to create a firetrap with no escape. Naturally there were no firefighting vehicles present to put out the flames. Now the government wants to blame the victims, but the Waco assault was deliberate mass murder, decided at the White House.

On Sunday, Vice President Al Gore wept tears for those who died 50 years ago in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But the methodical burning down of the Waco commune, carried “live” on television, recalled nothing so much as the Nazis’ razing of the Warsaw ghetto. Clinton/Gore have carried out their own holocaust against another religious minority who evidently have “no right to exist” in this racist capitalist society. The Clinton administration has carried out its own Operation Prairie Slaughter, igniting a massive firestorm against its perceived domestic “enemies,” a small group who did no harm to anyone.

The Spartacist League spokesman noted, “From Republican Bush to Democrat Clinton, the racist rulers show what they have in store for anyone who dares to defy the state. The murder of these innocent people, burned at the stake by this bloodthirsty government, cries out for vengeance. It will take a socialist revolution to mete out real justice to the police torturers of Rodney King, to the FBI arsonists in Waco, to the U.S. military bombers of Baghdad.”

USA Intentionally Undermining Venezuela’s Democracy

Dan Kovalik

Update: Venezuelan government agrees to expand audit of votes to 100 percent of all votes cast

The United States is refusing to recognize the results of the Venezuelan elections, insisting that Venezuela conduct a re-count of 100 percent of the votes in light of the narrow margin of victory for Nicolas Maduro. The facts surrounding the voting process and election outcome in Venezuela, the U.S.’s own experiences with close presidential elections, and the U.S.’s recent recognition of coup governments in Latin America demonstrate that the U.S.’s position in regard to Venezuela has nothing to do with the U.S.’s alleged concerns for democracy, but rather, its complete disdain for it.

I just returned from Venezuela where I was one of over 170 international election observers from around the world, including India, Guyana, Suriname, Colombia, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Scotland, England, the United States, Guatemala, Argentina, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Brazil, Chile, Greece, France, Panama and Mexico. These observers included two former presidents (of Guatemala and the Dominican Republic), judges, lawyers and numerous high ranking officials of national electoral councils. What we found was an election system which was transparent, inherently reliable, well-run and thoroughly audited.

Indeed, as to the auditing, what has been barely mentioned by the mainstream press is the fact that around 54 percent of all votes are, and indeed have already been, audited to ensure that the electronic votes match up with the paper receipts which serve as back-up for these electronic votes. And, this auditing is done in the presence of witnesses from both the governing and opposition parties right in the local polling places themselves. I witnessed just such an audit at the end of election day on Sunday. And, as is the usual case, the paper results matched up perfectly with the electronic ones. As the former Guatemalan President, Alvaro Colom, who served as an observer, opined, the vote in Venezuela is “secure” and easily verifiable.

In short, the observers’ experience this past week aligns with former U.S. president Jimmy Carter’s observation last year that Venezuela’s electoral system is indeed the “the best in the world.”

And so, what were the results of the election? With an impressive 79 percent of registered voters going to the polls, Nicolas Maduro won by over 260,000 votes, with a 1.6 percentage point margin over Henrique Capriles (50.7 to 49.1 percent). While this was certainly a close race, 260,000 votes is a comfortable victory, certainly by U.S. election standards. Thus, recall that John F. Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in 1960 with 49.7 percent of the vote to Nixon’s 49.6 percent. In addition, George W. Bush became president in 2000, though losing the popular vote to Al Gore, with 47.87 percent of the vote to Gore’s 48.38 percent, and with the entire race coming down to several hundred votes in Florida, with the Supreme Court actually blocking a hand recount in Florida. In none of these cases, did any nation in the world insist upon a recount or hesitate in recognizing the man declared to be the winner. Indeed, had a country like Venezuela done so, we would have found such a position absurd. The U.S.’s current position vis à vis Venezuela is no less absurd.

The U.S.’s position is all the more ridiculous given its quick recognition of the coup government in Paraguay after the former bishop-turned president, Fernando Lugo, was ousted in 2012, and its recognition of the 2009 elections in Honduras despite the fact that the U.S.’s stated precondition for recognizing this election — the return of President Manuel Zelaya to power after his forcible ouster by the military — never occurred. Of course, this even pales in comparison to the U.S.’s active involvement in coups against democratically-elected leaders in Latin America (e.g., against President Árbenz in Guatemala in 1954, against President Allende in Chile in 1973, and against President Aristide in Haiti in 2004).

And, the U.S.’s failure to recognize the Venezuelan elections is having devastating consequences in Venezuela, for it is emboldening the Venezuelan opposition to carry out violence in order to destabilize that country. Unlike Al Gore in 2000 who stepped aside for George W. Bush in the interest of his country and the U.S. Constitution, the Venezuelan opposition, being led by Henrique Capriles, clearly wants to foster chaos and crisis in Venezuela in order to topple the Maduro government by force (just as the same forces represented by Capriles forcibly kidnapped and briefly overthrew President Chavez, with U.S. support, in 2002). Thus, reasonably believing itself to have the backing of the U.S. and its military, the opposition is causing mayhem in Venezuela, including burning down clinics, destroying property, attacking Cuban doctors and destroying ruling party buildings. In all, seven Venezuelans are dead and dozens injured in this opposition-led violence.

There is no doubt that the U.S. could halt this violence right now by recognizing the results of the Venezuelan elections, just as the nations of the world recognized, without question, the results of the elections which put John F. Kennedy in power in 1960 and George W. Bush in power in 2000. The reason the U.S. is not doing so is obvious: It does not like the Venezuelans’ chosen form of government, and welcomes that government’s demise, even through violence. The U.S., therefore, is not supporting democracy and stability in Venezuela; it is intentionally undermining it.

Under My Presidency, Chávez’s Revolution Will Continue

Nicolas Maduro

A month ago Venezuela lost a historic leader who spearheaded the transformation of his country, and spurred a wave of change throughout Latin America. In Sunday’s election Venezuelans will choose whether to pursue the revolution initiated under Hugo Chávez – or return to the past. I worked closely with President Chávez for many years, and am now running to succeed him. Polls indicate that most Venezuelans support our peaceful revolution.

Chávez’s legacy is so profound that opposition leaders, who vilified him only months ago, now insist they will defend his achievements. But Venezuelans remember how many of these same figures supported an ill-fated coup against Chávez in 2002 and sought to reverse policies that have dramatically reduced poverty and inequality.

To grasp the scale of what has been achieved, it’s necessary to recall the state of my country when Chávez took office in 1999. In the previous 20 years Venezuela had suffered one of the sharpest economic declines in the world. As a result of neoliberal policies that favoured transnational capital at the expense of people’s basic needs, poverty soared. A draconian market-oriented agenda was imposed through massive repression, including the 1989 massacre of thousands in what is known as the Caracazo.

This disastrous trend was reversed under Chávez. Once the government was able to assert effective control over the state oil company in 2003, we began investing oil revenue in social programmes that now provide free healthcare and education throughout the country. The economic situation vastly improved. Poverty and extreme poverty have been reduced dramatically. Today Venezuela has the lowest rate of income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean.

As a result our government has won almost every election or referendum since 1998 – 16 in all – in a democratic process the former US president Jimmy Carter called “the best in the world“. If you haven’t heard much about these accomplishments, it may have something to do with the influence of Washington and its allies on the international media. They have been trying to de-legitimise and get rid of our government for more than a decade, ever since they supported the 2002 coup.

We have also worked to transform the region: to unite the countries of Latin America and work together to address the causes and symptoms of poverty. Venezuela was central to the creation of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), aimed at promoting social and economic development and political co-operation.

The media myth that our political project would fall apart without Chávez was a fundamental misreading of Venezuela’s revolution. Chávez has left a solid edifice, its foundation a broad, united movement that supports the process of transformation. We’ve lost our extraordinary leader, but his project – built collectively by workers, farmers, women, indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, and the young – is more alive than ever.

The media often portray Venezuela as on the brink of economic collapse – but our economy is stronger than ever. We have a low debt burden and a significant trade surplus, and have accumulated close to $30bn in international reserves.

There are of course many challenges still to overcome, as Chávez himself acknowledged. Among my primary objectives is the need to intensify our efforts to curb crime and aggressively confront inefficiency and corruption in a nationwide campaign.

Internationally, we will continue to work with our neighbours to deepen regional integration and fight poverty and social injustice. It’s a vision now shared across the region, which is why my candidacy has received strong support from figures such as the former Brazilian president Lula da Silva and many Latin American social movements. We also remain committed to promoting regional peace and stability, and this is why we will continue our energetic support of the peace talks in Colombia.

Latin America today is experiencing a profound political and social renaissance – a second independence – after decades of surrendering its sovereignty and freedom to global powers and transnational interests. Under my presidency, Venezuela will continue supporting this regional transformation and building a new form of socialism for our times. With the support of progressive people from every continent, we’re confident Venezuela can give a new impetus to the struggle for a more equitable, just and peaceful world.

Tennessee “Family Values”: Shame the Poor

Jane Cutter

In an attempt to shame and blame poor families, a bill has cleared both houses of the Tennessee State Legislature that would cut welfare aid to poor families of children struggling in school. If passed, the bill would cut Temporary Aid to Needy Families payments by 30 percent if a student is not making adequate progress in school.

Already, an outcry against this outrageous bill has resulted in some modifications, exempting students with disabilities and allowing families to avoid the penalty by taking steps to improve the child’s performance.

This bill demonizes the poor and reflects a retrogressive view of education and human behavior. Numerous studies have shown a strong positive correlation between academic success and family income. In other words, children from well-to-do families tend to do better at school. Punishing families already living in poverty by cutting their meager payments will do nothing to improve academic achievement. In fact, such penalties are likely to have the opposite effect.

If the sponsors of the bill, Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Vance Dennis, R-Savannah, really wanted to help poor children succeed in school, they would introduce legislation guaranteeing a living wage or income for all with guaranteed access to health care and decent housing.

Fidel Castro: Avoid New Korean War

Fidel Castro Ruz

A few days ago I mentioned the great challenges humanity is currently facing. Intelligent life emerged on our planet approximately 200,000 years ago, although new discoveries demonstrate something else.

This is not to confuse intelligent life with the existence of life which, from its elemental forms in our solar system, emerged millions of years ago.

A virtually infinite number of life forms exist. In the sophisticated work of the world’s most eminent scientists the idea has already been conceived of reproducing the sounds which followed the Big Bang, the great explosion which took place more than 13.7 billion years ago.

This introduction would be too extensive if it was not to explain the gravity of an event as unbelievable and absurd as the situation created in the Korean Peninsula, within a geographic area containing close to five billion of the seven billion persons currently inhabiting the planet.

This is about one of the most serious dangers of nuclear war since the October Crisis around Cuba in 1962, 50 years ago.

In 1950, a war was unleashed there [the Korean Peninsula] which cost millions of lives. It came barely five years after two atomic bombs were exploded over the defenseless cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which, in a matter of seconds, killed and irradiated hundreds of thousands of people.

General Douglas MacArthur wanted to utilize atomic weapons against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Not even Harry Truman allowed that.

It has been affirmed that the People’s Republic of China lost one million valiant soldiers in order to prevent the installation of an enemy army on that country’s border with its homeland. For its part, the Soviet army provided weapons, air support, technological and economic aid.

I had the honor of meeting Kim Il Sung, a historic figure, notably courageous and revolutionary.

If war breaks out there, the peoples of both parts of the Peninsula will be terribly sacrificed, without benefit to all or either of them. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was always friendly with Cuba, as Cuba has always been and will continue to be with her.

Now that the country has demonstrated its technical and scientific achievements, we remind her of her duties to the countries which have been her great friends, and it would be unjust to forget that such a war would particularly affect more than 70% of the population of the planet.

If a conflict of that nature should break out there, the government of Barack Obama in his second mandate would be buried in a deluge of images which would present him as the most sinister character in the history of the United States. The duty of avoiding war is also his and that of the people of the United States.

Maduro Counters Campaign to Discredit Venezuelan Electoral System

Ewan Robertson

The presidential candidate of the Bolivarian Revolution, Nicolas Maduro, yesterday counter-attacked the opposition’s campaign to discredit Venezuela’s electoral system ahead of the 14 April presidential election.

In recent days the Venezuelan opposition and allied media have been criticising the 14 April presidential election as not being held in “fair and transparent” conditions, in an apparent effort to discredit the Venezuelan electoral system ahead of the vote.

This campaign appears to have intensified following comments made on Friday 15 March by the US’s Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson, who said that it would be “a little difficult” for “open, fair, and transparent elections” to be held on 14 April.

The conservative opposition has also attempted to reach out to international opinion, with Diego Arria, a former Venezuelan diplomat, writing in the Huffington Post that Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) is “no more than a tool of the regime [sic: Venezuelan government] to maintain its power”.

This discourse marks a break with the opposition’s more conciliatory approach toward Venezuela’s electoral system last year, when the opposition MUD coalition asked the CNE to organise the opposition’s own internal elections, calling the CNE “an excellent example of democratic institutions in the country”.

Polling evidence suggests that the opposition is likely to lose the April election, called after the death of President Hugo Chavez on 5 March. Four polls released by private Venezuelan firms in recent days have given Nicolas Maduro an advantage over the opposition’s candidate Henrique Capriles of between 14 and 22%.

Yesterday, Nicolas Maduro, who is currently interim president, hit back at the opposition’s campaign to discredit the CNE, claiming that it was a strategy being used in light of the opposition’s “clear defeat” on 14 April.

Maduro repeated the claims of other pro-government figures, stating that the “ultra-right wing” within the opposition is also considering the withdrawal of Capriles’ candidacy “as a way of fleeing and then crying out [to the international community]”.

He further argued that his rival Capriles is caught between the opposition’s radical wing, who want to withdraw from the race in order to discredit the election, and the “apparently democratic” wing that wants to maintain an electoral strategy.

The interim president said the Venezuelan electoral system, “guarantees the sovereign decision of the voters” and that the campaign to discredit the CNE “will not favour” the opposition.

Directly addressing the opposition, Maduro said, “If you stay [in the electoral race]; welcome. We’re headed towards a great triumph, that’s how I feel. If you go, not so welcome. We will [still] have a great victory and we’ll maintain the political stability of the country; of that you can be sure”.

The difference in opinion within the opposition toward the electoral system has also become apparent in recent comments made to media.

Hard-line opposition legislator Maria Corina Machado called the Venezuelan government a “neo-dictatorial regime” with a “democratic façade” in an interview yesterday with conservative paper El Universal. She further said the CNE was full of “tricks and irregularities”.

Meanwhile, the president of opposition party COPEI, Roberto Enríquez, said in an interview today that the opposition “recognises” the accuracy of the Venezuelan electoral system.

However, he added, “Elections in Venezuela, like in all democratic systems, are and have to be perfectible”.

UNASUR

Today the CNE signed an agreement with the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) confirming that UNASUR will send an electoral accompaniment mission to Venezuela ahead of the 14 April election.

The mission’s aim, according to the head of UNASUR’s electoral council, Francisco Távara Córdova, is “to witness the electoral process within the framework of solidarity, cooperation and respect for sovereignty, with the aim of generating shared knowledge and experience in electoral matters”.

The mission’s head will likely be Argentine Carlos Alvarez, who led the UNASUR electoral mission to Venezuela for the October 2012 presidential election.

Several Venezuelan electoral NGO’s have also been invited by the CNE to observe the upcoming election.

France: Uproar Over Same-Sex Marriage

Workers Vanguard

The following article was translated from Le Bolchévik No. 203 (March 2013), which is published by the Ligue Trotskyste de France, section of the ICL. A law legalizing gay marriage and adoption, which was passed by the National Assembly on February 12, is due to be debated in the Senate in early April.

The LTF has joined in the recent mobilizations for “marriage for all,” which are aimed at winning some degree of basic rights for gay couples, including finally the right to adopt children. In fact, the first limited legal recognition of gay couples dates back only to 1999 with the introduction of the Civil Solidarity Pact [a form of civil union]. As Marxists, we support the right of homosexuals to marry—and to divorce freely—because we are for full legal equality and democratic rights for gays, just as we support any legal advances that the working class and oppressed can wrest from the capitalists and their state. At the same time, we fight for a society in which no one is forced into a legal straitjacket to get the basic rights that capitalist society grants only to those locked in the traditional legal mold of “one man on one woman for life.”

In the wake of parliament’s adoption of the new bill, the Communist Party (PCF) writes that “marriage is no longer (or not exactly) a patriarchal institution, outdated and reactionary” and that “the National Assembly has revolutionized the institution of the family” (l’Humanité, 13 February). On the one hand the PCF captures a certain truth: the law on gay marriage is intended to adapt marriage to the reality of how people live today in order to better defend the institution of the bourgeois family. As Jean-Jacques Urvoas, the Socialist Party president of the parliamentary law commission, stated in an interview in Le Monde (15 January): “It is mistaken to accuse us of attacking the family when what we want is to make all families secure.”

But until the day capitalism is destroyed, the function of marriage as a key pillar of the bourgeois family unit will not change. Like the oppression of women, the oppression of homosexuals is not primarily the result of right-wing reaction and social backwardness but is rooted in the institution of the family, whose historical function is to transmit private ownership of the means of production to “legitimate” heirs through inheritance. This is why France forbids single people and gay couples from using artificial insemination or medically assisted procreation (including in vitro fertilization) as well as surrogate motherhood. The family is also one of the means through which the ruling class seeks to instill respect for authority and obedience to its moral codes. Homosexuality is deemed “sinful” and “deviant” by the Catholic church and the bourgeois order because it deviates from the patriarchal structure of the monogamous one man/one woman family.

The PCF’s opposition to surrogate parenthood, a practice that benefits gay men in particular, also speaks to its faith in the institution of the family. Surrogate parenthood currently carries a fine of 45,000 euros and a three-year prison sentence. It was strongly denounced by Justice Minister Christiane Taubira and the PCF’s Marie-Georges Buffet during the parliamentary debates on gay marriage and is also attacked by feminists in the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA). They all argue that it commercializes women’s bodies: “Giving power to a third party over a woman’s pregnancy is a threat to the right to abortion. Moreover, the ability to alienate her body by a contract opens the door to the legalization of prostitution” (Tout Est à Nous! La Revue magazine, April 2011).

At bottom, they uphold the bourgeois model that decrees that it is the job of the woman (and not two men) to raise children. They also deny a woman’s fundamental right to choose what to do with her body. If a woman decides to carry a baby for someone else, that’s her decision and the state and its politicians should stay out of it. Likewise, if she becomes a prostitute to make a living rather than being exploited by some factory owner at a job where she breaks her back or suffers relentless harassment, that’s her business and not something for the capitalist state to legislate.

We stand for the decriminalization of prostitution, which we regard as a “crime without a victim,” like drug use, gambling, pornography, homosexual and intergenerational sex—activities that are generally illegal or heavily regulated under capitalist law. For us Marxists, the guiding principle in sexual relations is that of effective consent, not age, relationship, sex, number of people or degree of intimacy. This means nothing more and nothing less than mutual agreement and understanding as opposed to coercion. As long as those who take part agree to do what they are doing, no one, least of all the state, has the right to tell them they cannot. State out of the bedroom!

Homophobic Hysteria and the Fight for Democratic Rights

The church and the right-wing parties have mobilized hundreds of thousands of bigots in the streets against gay marriage. The level of homophobic hysteria can be so grotesque as to seem farcical. Take the diatribe by Dassault, a leading French capitalist, predicting the end of civilization if gay marriage became law: “There will be no more reproduction, so what is the point? Do we want a nation of gays? If so, in ten years there will be no one left; it’s stupid…. Look at history, ancient Greece; it is one of the reasons for its decline” (Le Monde online, 7 November 2012). But some things are more sinister. The youth group of the UMP [Union for a Popular Movement of former president Nicolas Sarkozy] of the Haute Garonne département [administrative division] published on its Web site a photo of a bare-chested young man hanging from a rope with the words above him: “You will not be a queer, my son.” All this will fuel violent assaults against gays and lesbians…as well as their kids. One out of every four homosexuals has been the victim of a physical attack over the last ten years, according to a poll conducted for the gay magazine Têtu. The gay rights association SOS Homophobie in its last annual report lists 29 murders in France during the past decade in which homophobia or transphobia was the motive.

A revolutionary party must vigorously make known to the workers movement all attacks and discrimination on homosexuals and every oppressed sector of the population, vigorously protesting against these assaults. Such attacks are ultimately aimed at weakening the entire working class and dividing it along sexual and racial lines, serving to strengthen the capitalist state’s repressive powers and maintain capitalist rule. The working class must come to understand that in order to liberate itself from the shackles of capitalist oppression and exploitation, it must seize its historic task: to abolish class society in order to open the road to human freedom for everyone.

But to mobilize the immense social power of the organized working class against capitalism necessarily means an intransigent political struggle against the leaders of the social-democratic parties of the Left Front, the NPA and others who take up the defense of the bourgeois family, albeit in its refurbished form. They promote the lie that if only sufficient pressure is applied from the streets, capitalism can be “revolutionized” and made more humane by means of a “left” government. In this way they work to preserve capitalist exploitation and the social reaction that goes with it.

Anti-Woman, Anti-Youth “Republican Values”

Given the reactionary rubbish being spewed by the right, the Socialist Hollande government has had little trouble appearing “progressive” by promoting “marriage for all” (which does not diminish its capitulation to the church and right-wing parties over in vitro fertilization). The government hopes to use this as political capital to get on with presiding over factory closures, criminalizing the trade unions and implementing the rest of its racist, anti-worker agenda without too much opposition. In Britain, it is the Conservative prime minister who has just steered a vote on gay marriage through Parliament in order to strengthen the institution of the family and also, as in Hollande’s case, to give itself a “social” cover in order to better push through its relentless austerity attacks.

Justice Minister Taubira declared of the new marriage law: “Marriage for everyone well illustrates the slogan of the Republic…freedom of choice, equality of all couples, fraternity, because no differences should serve as pretexts for discrimination by the state” (l’Humanité, 30 January). Talk about hypocrisy! The French state, whether run by the right or the left, has no qualms over breaking up families when it comes to the working class, immigrants and other oppressed layers. A gathering in Aubervilliers recently marked the first anniversary of the deportation of Changfeng Mo, an undocumented immigrant with two young children born and educated in France, who was deported after ten years living and working in the country. Full citizenship rights for all immigrants and their families! There is, of course, no sign of “fraternity” coming from cop minister Valls to reunite this man with his family.

Or take France’s latest département, the small island of Mayotte [part of the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, near Mozambique], which in 2010 carried out 26,400 deportations, of whom 6,400 were children. This number was not far below the 33,000 immigrants deported from metropolitan France. Under Valls & Co., the deportation machine in Mayotte continues to operate at such a pace that kids frequently come home from school to find one or both of their parents gone, taken to the transit center to await deportation. There are also several documented cases in which children have been deported without their parents by being arbitrarily “assigned” to a stranger. Down with the deportations!

For months and months we have heard politicians of the left and right swearing that they have only the best interests of children and youth at heart when at the same time all of them work to maintain the capitalist class and its machinery of state repression—the real source of violence, crime and alienation inflicted on young people in this society. In France today, a quarter of those between the ages of 16 and 24 are jobless and see little immediate prospect of getting out from under the family roof to live independently. In many banlieue areas [minority and working-class neighborhoods on the outskirts of big cities], the jobless figures for youth have been at 50 percent (or more) for some years now. The 2005 banlieue revolt spoke to this despair, particularly among male youth of minority backgrounds, who see no future for themselves outside of a McJob or more likely the unemployment office or prison. And since 2005, the situation has only gotten worse.

Today the Peugeot company and Hollande are shutting down the Aulnay car plant, historically one of the main employers for youth—albeit on lousy temporary contracts—in the “93” [a heavily minority département northeast of Paris]. People like Arnaud Montebourg [Socialist minister of industrial recovery] wag their fingers in the tradition of their hero, [19th-century colonialist] Jules Ferry. They lecture the workers that they need to “try harder,” be more flexible and take jobs hundreds of miles from their homes. In fact, by doing that they are creating thousands more single-parent households with all the weight of oppression this implies, especially for women. Repeated deep cuts in education and health care budgets in recent years also weigh particularly on women and children. It is now common practice for municipalities to refuse school lunches to children of unemployed parents—sometimes their only hot meal of the day—with the state arguing that since the parents don’t work the kids can go home to eat. Thus they ensure that mothers (in the main) remain jobless and isolated in the home. Free school meals and quality, 24-hour childcare for all!

The Family as a Pillar of Capitalism

The only way to begin to do away with the deep-rooted chauvinism and violence generated by the capitalist profit system against youth, women, gays, immigrants and other oppressed layers is the struggle to overthrow bourgeois rule by socialist revolution. Through the expropriation of the productive property of the capitalist class, a workers government will lay the basis for a planned economy that qualitatively expands the productive forces, eliminates scarcity and vastly expands the range and depth of scientific knowledge. Making such a leap in social productivity presupposes the international extension of the revolution, crucially in the advanced imperialist countries. Socialist revolution can then begin to lay the basis for replacing the family by providing the material means to socialize and collectivize its household functions (for example, establishing communal 24-hour childcare, kitchens, cafeterias and laundries as well as free health care).

The family originated with the development of classes. Prior to that stage of history, it was not important who the father was since children were to a large extent raised collectively by the entire community. But the invention of agriculture made it possible for the first time for people to produce more than they could consume themselves. This led to the creation of a surplus and of private property, and thus of an idle class that lived off the labor of others. In order to pass down its fortune and property to the next generation, that class had to know who the father was. This is the origin of the institution of marriage, whose goal was precisely to restrict women’s sexual activity, enforcing monogamy for women (not men). Therefore by its nature the family is sexually repressive. Even today, if a woman in France wants to re-marry in the nine months following her divorce, she is legally obliged to undergo a medical examination to obtain a doctor’s certificate stating that she is not pregnant. This is in line with the Civil Code, which specifies that “if a child is conceived or born during the marriage, the father is the husband.”

French Revolution’s Legacy for Women and Gays

To understand that social progress will only come from revolutionary struggle, it is necessary to look back and study the significant advances won during such periods for women and homosexuals and other minorities. The French Revolution of 1789 was a bourgeois revolution preserving private property, which limited the changes it introduced. Nevertheless it brought monumental progress in women’s and homosexual rights, particularly during its most radical years.

As late as 1783 under the ancien régime, a monk was burned alive after being charged with conducting a sexual act with a boy. The penal code of 1791 removed the crime of sodomy from the books and declared it an “imaginary crime.” Police surveillance of known homosexual meeting places such as the Tuileries gardens diminished markedly in the wake of the revolution.

Women had no rights whatsoever under the ancien régime. The monarchy constantly sought to reinforce, consolidate and extend the father’s control over the marriage of his children. Women charged with committing adultery were sentenced to be publicly whipped, thrown in prison or, worst of all, sent to the convent for life. Men could not marry without parental consent, and if they married a minor (under 25 years for women) without that consent they could be sentenced to death, whether the woman consented or not. Marriage was indissoluble—a life sentence.

In 1792, the age of legal adulthood was reduced to 21 years for all and marriage without parental consent became possible. The divorce law enacted the same year was extremely liberal (even by today’s standards), allowing couples to divorce by mutual consent or through either spouse declaring incompatibility. It made divorce affordable even for the poor throughout the country. In the year following the introduction of the law, 70 percent of all divorces were initiated by women. Further, a 1793 decree gave illegitimate children the right to inherit from both the mother and the father. There was also legislation accepting “free unions,” so that, for example, unmarried partners of soldiers could receive government pensions. With one stroke, the institution of the family lost one of its main functions, i.e., to transfer property from one generation to another. As we wrote in “Women and the French Revolution” (Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 56, Spring 2001):

“The family was temporarily undermined in order to serve the needs of the revolution against its enemies, the feudal nobility and Catholic church. This is one demonstration of the fact that social institutions which seem to be immutable, to be ‘natural’ and ‘eternal,’ are in fact nothing more than the codification of social relations dictated by the particular economic system that is in place. After the bourgeoisie consolidated its power as the new ruling class, it re-established the constraints of the family. But nothing would ever be the same again. The contradictory reality of the French Revolution—the breathtaking leap in securing individual rights and the strict limits imposed on those rights by the fact that this was a bourgeois and not a socialist revolution—was captured by Karl Marx in The German Ideology:

“‘The existence of the family is made necessary by its connection with the mode of production, which exists independently of the will of bourgeois society. That it was impossible to do without it was demonstrated in the most striking way during the French Revolution, when for a moment the family was as good as legally abolished’.”

With the Thermidorian reaction many of these gains were diminished or overturned, but the situation of women had progressed qualitatively as it also had for homosexuals; there could never be a return to the total subjugation of women that existed under the ancien régime. The fight for women’s liberation was front and center during the Paris Commune decades later. With the establishment of the Napoleonic civil code in 1804, which consolidated the bourgeois order, various morality laws were reintroduced which were used in part to repress gay men, but there was no explicit criminalization of homosexuality in the penal code. This was why Oscar Wilde and other gay men settled in France in order to escape prison in their own countries.

Anti-Homosexual Repression After World War II

It was not until 1942 under Vichy that the Pétain government [quisling regime of the Nazi occupation] amended the law to once again explicitly criminalize homosexuality. Under the German occupation, the French police and the Gestapo rounded up homosexuals and sent them to the labor and death camps—crimes that were not recognized by a French head of state until 2005. These laws were not repealed but were reinforced under the early postwar governments under General de Gaulle and the PCF. This was the period of the “battle of production”: after the devastation of the imperialist war, there were enormous social expectations and great anger among the working class. The PCF labored to save French capitalism and supported de Gaulle’s “moral order.” They condemned strikes and pushed workers to toil harder and longer in order to produce more profits (and also to produce children that would later work in the factories…). In 1945, de Gaulle evoked the “12 million beautiful babies that France needs in 12 years,” and legislation was introduced to further strengthen the family.

In July 1945, the government voted to increase the age of consent to 15 for heterosexuals and 21 for homosexuals (previously set at eleven years old in 1832 and in 1863 at 13, for everyone). The following year, the government introduced a law targeting homosexuals whereby only people “of good moral character” could work in the civil service. In 1960, again under de Gaulle, a Gaullist parliamentarian denounced homosexuality as “a scourge against which it is our duty to protect our children,” and the need to “struggle against homosexuality,” alongside alcoholism, prostitution and certain illnesses like tuberculosis, was inscribed in law. This amendment did not produce the slightest debate.

It was only in the wake of the May 1968 upheaval that anything changed. In May ’68, youth rose up against de Gaulle’s stultifying moral order, sparking strikes and factory occupations that threatened the capitalist order. Women and homosexuals once again began to make advances in their democratic rights. Already during May ’68, attempts were made to create a Revolutionary Committee of Gay Action, but its leaflets posted at the Sorbonne university were torn down. In subsequent years, homosexual organizations such as the FHAR (Homosexual Front of Revolutionary Action) were set up, fighting centrally for gay rights but also for the right to abortion and contraception and in opposition to the age-of-consent laws. These organizations gave unprecedented visibility to the fight for gay rights. They participated in the labor movement’s traditional May Day demonstrations, although not without hostility from the leaders of the PCF at that time. Speaking of the FHAR’s participation in the 1972 May Day demonstration, the PCF’s Roland Leroy wrote in l’Humanité: “This riffraff does not represent the vanguard of society but the rottenness of capitalism in its decay.”

But it was the refusal of the workers movement (centrally the PCF) to embrace the fight for gay rights that led to the development of petty-bourgeois sectoralism, i.e., a view that the fight for gay rights was a separate issue, to be engaged mainly by those concerned. Today’s gay rights groups have few links with and are often hostile to the workers movement and class struggle, the only means by which gay liberation can be won. Finally in 1974, access to contraception was opened up, including for minors, and the Pill reimbursed by the national health care system. A year later, abortion was legalized. Then between 1980 and 1982, under [conservative president] Giscard d’Estaing followed by [Socialist president François] Mitterrand, the laws criminalizing homosexuality were also for the most part repealed at last.

The Russian Revolution and Social Emancipation

For Marxists, contrary to gay rights organizations like the FHAR in the 1970s or groups like Act Up today, there is no special program for homosexuals. The communist program includes demands that address the special oppression of gays, and we understand that the fate of homosexuals—like all other oppressed groups—is determined by the class struggle. But under capitalism, gains and advances are reversible and social reaction is always strengthened during periods of economic crises, as can be seen today.

Only a socialist revolution can lay the basis for definitively putting an end to social oppression. Our model is the 1917 October Revolution, led by the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Trotsky. Immediately after the seizure of power, the Soviet workers state began to undercut the old bourgeois prejudices and social institutions responsible for the oppression of women and homosexuals. The Bolsheviks abolished all legal impediments to women’s equality and all laws against homosexual acts and other consensual sexual activity. Their position was explained in a 1923 pamphlet by Dr. Grigorii Batkis, Director of the Moscow Institute for Sexual Hygiene, titled “The Sexual Revolution in Russia” (see also “The Russian Revolution and the Emancipation of Women,” Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 59, Spring 2006):

“[The new Soviet legislation] declares the absolute non-interference of the state and society into sexual matters, so long as nobody is injured, and no one’s interests are encroached upon…. Concerning homosexuality, sodomy, and various other forms of sexual gratification, which are set down in European legislation as offenses against public morality—Soviet legislation treats these exactly the same as so-called ‘natural’ intercourse. All forms of sexual intercourse are private matters.”

For the Bolsheviks, women’s emancipation was an integral part of the emancipation of the working class itself, not something subordinate to it. The Bolsheviks, informed by their Marxist program for women’s liberation, sought to build socialized alternatives to the family, within the limits of their capacity in backward Russia. The country had been bled white by World War I and the civil war that broke out soon after the October Revolution and was under the immense pressure of hostile imperialist encirclement. They struggled, amid the harsh economic situation, to provide the material and economic means to abolish the family unit and release women from the isolation of childcare and domestic work. These glimmers of a new society and an end to the oppression of women and gays later faded under the political counterrevolution led by Stalin in 1923-24 in the context of the isolation of the young workers state. In 1934 a law was passed punishing homosexuality with imprisonment, and in 1936 abortion was outlawed.

Sexuality is not in itself a political question. It is the bourgeoisie that politicizes this issue by victimizing those who do not fit the norms established by the family, church and state. We seek to carry forward the program of Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolsheviks and to mobilize the proletariat in defense of the rights of all the oppressed as part of the fight to overturn capitalism through socialist revolution. To create genuinely free and equal relations among people in all spheres, including sex, requires nothing less than the destruction of capitalist class rule and the creation of a communist world.