Free the Liberty City Seven!

MIAMI, FL — In a move reminiscent of the U.S. government war on the Black Power movement of the 1960s, the FBI locked up seven Africans from Miami’s impoverished Liberty City area on June 22, claiming that they were thinking about committing terrorism.

The seven African men charged — Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Burson Augustine, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Lyglenson Lemorin and Rotschild Augustine — are now being held up by the U.S. government as “domestic terrorists.” However, government officials even admit that these brothers had no capacity to commit any act of so-called terrorism.

In fact, prosecutors have admitted that it was actually an FBI agent provocateur who created a plan to attack some government buildings and who purchased materials, which included boots and a camera, for this plan. The warehouse that the FBI raided however, contained no guns, no ammunition and no explosives of any kind.

This activity is a common practice the FBI had done during the Black Power movement of the 1960s where it would infiltrate an organization with a FBI agent provocateur and have that agent commit illegal acts and encourage other members to join in these acts. The FBI would use this illegal activity initiated by its own agent as a reason to arrest members of the targeted organization and destroy it.

This and other tactics are part of a war of counterinsurgency that has been waged against the African community to prevent it from getting organized to break free of the parasitic relationship we are held in with U.S. and European imperialism. This is a relationship where the U.S. and Europe amass wealth at the expense of the theft of all of Africa’s human and material resources.

The seven African men are victims of terrorism

If the State was honest, then the discussion of terrorism would have begun long before these brothers were even born. The defendant would not be these seven Africans who could not even afford water, but instead the U.S. government who holds the entire African community under a constant state of terror.

“Exhibit A” would be the abject poverty that African people are held in. “Exhibit B” could be the daily police murders of Africans that are always deemed “justified” in the eyes of the State.

The flooding of the African communities with drugs by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could be put forth as “Exhibit C.”

These attacks made against African people by the U.S. government are not isolated to the Africans domestically colonized within U.S. borders. One could point to the U.S. overthrow of the democratically elected president of Haiti as more evidence against the U.S. government.

One could find more evidence than is possible to place in any evidence room to make clear the fact that it is the U.S. government that is responsible for committing acts of terror against not just these seven brothers, but against African people worldwide. In fact, the very presence of the brothers who we see on trial today in the U.S. is evidence of the terrorism of white power that snatched up Africans from Africa and dispersed us around the world, murdering millions on the way.

These brothers are themselves victims of U.S. government. As Africans, they have to face the daily terror inflicted by an occupying army called the police that keeps Liberty City and every other African community under siege.

Attack on Liberty City Seven was to set stage for attack on African Liberation Movement

Even the imperialist media has found it difficult to avoid the fact that these seven Africans had no capacity to commit the acts that they are accused of planning. These Africans lived in an impoverished African community in Liberty City, Florida.

They themselves were so poor that they had their water turned off like many African people do from time to time and had to borrow water from a neighbor. Their electricity had also been cut off. These are the forces who the U.S. government claims were supposed to be carrying out a highly sophisticated “terrorist plot.”

So here there are these impoverished Africans who are offered by an FBI agent provocateur $50,000 if they would pledge allegiance to al-Qaeda. They are given a camera, a cell phone and some boots.

“In fact, prosecutors have admitted that it was actually an FBI agent provocateur who created a plan to attack some government buildings and who purchased materials, which included boots and a camera, for this plan.”

Before this episode, these Africans were heavily involved in the community. They were a study group that studied books like the Christian bible and other religious books. They were teaching self-defense classes to the children in the community.

So then the question is asked, why did the U.S. government choose this group of Africans to attack?

When the U.S. government began disappearing Arab people in its so-called “war on terror” after the leveling of the World Trade Center in New York in 2001, it was clear that it would not be very long before this attack would reach the African community. This most oppressed sector of the U.S. population has also historically been the most revolutionary sector.

So when FBI troops invaded the African community and swept these seven brothers away, it was clear that this is what was happening. The U.S. government assumed that these brothers were isolated and had no way to get out of this situation.

While these brothers were doing some community work, they did not have any mass based organization. So most of the community didn’t know what their program was or whether they even had a program.

The U.S. government decided to frame up these brothers precisely because they had no capacity to commit these acts or to defend themselves. These Africans were powerless and thus an easy target.

If the U.S. government could lock these seven Africans up and convict them, then it would open the door for them to begin attacking other forces throughout the entire African Liberation tendency.

The Liberty City Seven have been charged with conspiracy to detonate explosives and with sedition. What “sedition” means is that they’ve been charged with attempting to incite rebellion against the State.

Sedition is a purely political charge that, by any other name, has historically been used against the African Liberation Movement in the U.S. In fact, the first person in the state of Florida to be charged with such a charge was African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela, then called Joe Waller.

This is a weapon that the government clearly intends to use to put down any capacity of the African working class to organize to end our oppression. The case against the Liberty City Seven is an attempt to gain momentum.

Government threatens families of Liberty City Seven

What the U.S. government did not count on is that these seven Africans are not alone. The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) has begun organizing in defense of these young Africans.

InPDUM President Chimurenga Waller has been himself organizing in Miami along with the families of the Liberty City Seven. The International Convention of InPDUM brought participation from Sylvain Plantin who is one of the key forces in organizing in defense of the Liberty City Seven, and even as The Burning Spear goes to press, organizers are being readied to touch down in Miami to affect the release of these seven Africans.

The U.S. government recognizes the significance of this case and has responded to organizing attempts with threats. Less than a week after InPDUM organizers began passing out flyers around the case, an article appeared in the Miami Herald stating that the FBI were not only investigating the seven brothers, but that it was also investigating others around them.

It is no coincidence that the article called by name the wife of Narseal Batiste who has been one of the main forces organizing in the community for their release. It is clear that the State feels threatened by the efforts to free these seven Africans who it unjustly imprisoned.

It is important that the entire African community recognize the importance of defending these seven Africans. The fact is, if the State is allowed to lock them away then they will only be the beginning. We must join the process to free the Liberty City Seven!

Free the Liberty City Seven!

Defend the Democratic Rights of the African Community!