Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. and P.O.C.C.& CISPES present:

Cross-border Resistance to State Terrorism

Join the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, the Prisoners of Conscience Committee in screening "Hijos de la Guerra", a film that explores the origins of Salvadoran gangs, dating back to the build-up to the 12-year civil war which killed 75,000 people and left the horrendous war crimes that were committed uninvestigated and unresolved.

The panelists will explore connections between police violence and assassinations in Black and Brown communities throughout the US and in left-leaning, poor communities in El Salvador historically and now -- since the opening of the U.S. Police Training Academy in El Salvador in 2005.

followed by a panel discussion with:

Revolutionary journalist JR Minister of Information, P.O.C.C. Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., and members of CISPES.

This is a fundraiser for JR and Chairman Fred's travel and in-country costs for the delegation to El Salvador later this month.


2008 CISPES Fact-Finding Delegation to
El Salvador

JR Minister of Information and Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. of the P.O.C.C. are going on a CISPES fact-finding delegation to El Salvador

Meetings between these revolutionary forces -- the P.O.C.C. and Salvadoran left – represent enormous possibilities for Black and Brown solidarity across continents and an end to U.S.-sponsored war on indigenous and poor people of the world. This delegation will investigate renewed death squad activity and attacks on the Salvadoran social movement after the opening of a new regional U.S. police training academy and U.S. government attempts to prevent a leftist victory for El Salvador in the 2009 elections.

CISPES considers itself and its legacy in close solidarity with Black Power and Chican@ movements past and present.

Many of the policing strategies that are becoming "transnationalized" today are the ones that were originally designed and deployed to destroy the power and popular base of the Black Panther Party in and the Chican@ movement in the U.S. in the 60 and 70s. The U.S. government's systematic assault and criminalization of rebellious black and brown youth has paved the way for the largest prison economy, as the P.O.C.C. would say, the largest network of "concentration camps" in the world.

As Latin and African people are forced to cross national borders to escape economic and political isolation and police violence in their home countries, Black folks in the US are being forced in unprecedented numbers to migrate off of land owned by their parents and grandparents and into threat of assassination by the police, prison, or new hostile territories within the U.S.

What is CISPES?

The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador is a U.S.-based activist organization that stood in solidarity with the peasant uprising to overthrow the U.S.-supported dictatorship of El Salvador throughout the 80s. Today CISPES is fighting a new era of U.S. occupation of El Salvador and the criminalization of immigrants.

What is the Prisoners of Conscience Committee?

"We are not a prison activist organization. We are a revolutionary organization." - Fred Hampton, Jr.

The Prisoners of Conscience Committee was founded by Fred Hampton, Jr. during the nine years he spent in jail in the 1990's. In the words of Chairman Fred, Jr: "[The POCC] was literally birthed from behind enemy lines, its birth canal was the concentration camps, its umbilical cords are the prison chains." Now a national organization, the P.O.C.C engages in revolutionary work throughout the country, both through their own programs and through coalition building with other revolutionary peoples and organizations.

In their own words they are "an organization that consists of African Revolutionary Freedom Fighters whose agenda is to liberate the minds and hearts of African and Colonized people." Though they do not consider themselves a prison activist organization, the P.O.C.C. uses what happens inside the concentration camps as a model to explain the oppressive power structure on the outside.

Thank you for helping to make this delegation possible. If you can't make it to one of our events but want to contribute, send a check to JR Minister of Information @ Bay View Newspaper 4917 Third St. San Francisco, CA 94124 or you can give with a credit card by calling the Bay View Newspaper office at 415-671-0789.