Cops in America are heavily armed and trained to be bullies, and they routinely hurt people who pose no serious threat to anyone. People who complain about this kind of rough handling are treated like trash, as if any level of intimidation and violence whatsoever were obviously legitimate, and the victims are to blame for provoking whatever they get. Cops in America are also professional liars. They lie to obtain confessions; they lie to obtain consent for searches; they lie to intimidate; they lie to lull people into a false sense of security. They also lie repeatedly and extensively to carry on investigations, which is constantly necessary in the effort to enforce drug laws: since the so-called crime of selling and using drugs involves only willing parties, there’s no victim to file a complaint, so narcs have to lie and pose and infiltrate in order to even discover where drugs are being sold and by whom.

In La Pine, Oregon, here is how the DEA and the local narcs recently worked together to seize evidence from two people for a federal drug case without identifying themselves as cops, affording any opportunity to consult a lawyer, or even going so far as to get a warrant or talk to a judge.

On December 18, 2004, Ascension Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend were stopped at a traffic light near La Pine Oregon, and when the light turned green, the car in front of them stalled. Alverez-Tejeda stopped in time but a pickup truck behind him rear-ended him. When he got out to look at his bumper, the police showed up and arrested the truck driver for drinking and driving. The cops then convinced Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend to go to a nearby parking lot, ordered them out of their car and into in the back of the cop car for processing. While they were in the cruiser, a person jumped in their car and took off. The cops ordered the pair out and set off in full pursuit up the road. A few minutes later, the stolen car comes flying back down the road with the police cruiser in pursuit. The pursuing officer returns alone with the woman’s purse, telling the duo that the carjacker thrown it out the car window and escaped. The woman is so upset she hurls and the police put the distraught couple up in a motel.

But it was all a set up worthy of David Mamet. DEA agents were tracking a drug gang and had bought drugs out of the car months earlier, though not when Alverez-Tejeda was there. Using wiretaps and surveillance, the DEA learned that Alverez-Tejeda was using the leader’s car to transport illicit drugs. The agents then decided to stage something, perhaps even a carjacking, in order to seize the drugs without tipping off the conspirators. They never consulted a judge, but every person in the story, other than Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend, was a cop of some sort.

Once they got the car, the agents got a search warrant without telling the judge about the caper and seized cocaine and methamphetamines, as well as property belonging to Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend.

— Ryan Singel, Wired Blogs (2007-06-08): Appeals Court Rules Cops Can Steal Cars and Lie to Victims To Conduct a Warrantless Search

And here’s what happened when they took this evidence to court:

The government indicted Alverez-Tejeda but the district court in Washington found that the caper violated the Fourth Amendment, thus making the drugs inadmissable in court. The government appealed.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s decision Friday, finding that this police escapade was legal since the cops had probable cause already to seize and search the car, thanks to the vehicle exception to the Fourth Amendment created by the courts during the War on Drugs. Therefore, the court found, the police are allowed much latitude in how they seize the car and arrest the driver. The tap was considered only a minimal use of force, and the fake chase wasn’t considered to have put any civilians lives in danger.

The government here certainly had important reasons for employing this unusual procedure in seizing the car. First, the agents wanted to stop the drugs before they reached their ultimate destination — a patently important goal. Second, they wanted to protect the anonymity of the ongoing investigation — another vital objective.

— Ryan Singel, Wired Blogs (2007-06-08): Appeals Court Rules Cops Can Steal Cars and Lie to Victims To Conduct a Warrantless Search

To recap, two people who did absolutely nothing to violate anyone else’s rights or hurt anyone against their will, had their car rammed and then stolen. The narcs knew about the deliberate ramming and the theft but they lied about them–because, after all, they ordered them. They used this lie to seize property and obtain evidence without giving their victims any chance to assert their rights (since they were lied to, they had no idea that a search or seizure was even taking place), and without obtaining a warrant or submitting to judicial oversight of any kind. The narcs feel that they need to be able to do this kind of thing in order to do their jobs effectively, since snitch anonymity, which actually has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with systematically lying about who they are and what they do, is an essential tool in their efforts to lock harmless people in cages for the next several years of their lives. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, meanwhile, stands by and smilingly waves them on, once again under the excuse of necessity.

To prove, that these Sort of policed Societies are a Violation offered to Nature, and a Constraint upon the human Mind, it needs only to look upon the sanguinary Measures, and Instruments of Violence which are every where used to support them. Let us take a Review of the Dungeons, Whips, Chains, Racks, Gibbets, with which every Society is abundantly stored, by which hundreds of Victims are annually offered up to support a dozen or two in Pride and Madness, and Millions in an abject Servitude, and Dependence. There was a Time, when I looked with a reverential Awe on these Mysteries of Policy; but Age, Experience, and Philosophy have rent the Veil; and I view this Sanctum Sanctorum, at least, without any enthusiastick Admiration. I acknowledge indeed, the Necessity of such a Proceeding in such Institutions; but I must have a very mean Opinion of Institutions where such Proceedings are necessary.

— Edmund Burke (1757): A Vindication of Natural Society

So who are the real criminals here?

Last weekend, a small group of anarchist mutual aid workers from Lawrence, Kansas traveled to Greensburg, which had been almost entirely destroyed the weekend before that by a powerful tornado. What they found was a town completely devastated by a natural disaster, which is now being hurt, not helped, by official government relief efforts. Just as happened with Katrina in New Orleans, they faced the sickening sight of government agencies forcing residents to desert their own homes, turning away independent relief volunteers at bayonet-point, and devoting most or all of their own resources to security and maintaining the continuity of government over a paramilitary-occupied ghost-town. Here’s what Dave Strano of Kansas Mutual Aid had to say about the situation:

Somewhere over the Rainbow: A report from a Kansas Mutual Aid member from tornado devastated Greensburg, Kansas

by Dave Strano

On Saturday May 12, four members of Kansas Mutual Aid, a Lawrence based class struggle anarchist collective traveled to the small South Central Kansas town of Greensburg. Our intention was to go as a fact-finding delegation, to report back to the social justice movement in Lawrence on what exactly was happening in the city.

On Friday May 4, 2007 Greensburg was almost completely destroyed by a F5 tornado. 97% of the buildings in the town of 1500 were destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Nearly every single resident was left homeless, jobless, and devastated. At least eleven people died in the storm, and hundreds of companion animals, livestock, and wild animals were killed as well.

According to the 2000 census, 97% of the population of Greensburg was white, and the median income of the population was a meager $28,000. The city was and still is comprised of overwhelmingly poor, white working people.

Shortly after the tornado, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took control of the recovery efforts in Greensburg. The United Way became the coordinating organization for relief volunteers but, after orders came from FEMA, halted the flow of volunteers into Greensburg. FEMA demanded that Greensburg needed to be secured before the area could be opened to real recovery efforts.

So, as hundreds of recovery volunteers were told to not come to Greensburg by the United Way, hundreds of police from dozens of Kansas jurisdictions were mobilized to enter the city and establish control.

Reports coming from the recovery effort in Greensburg had been woefully short of information. We made multiple phone calls to the United Way and other aid agencies, and were told repeatedly not to come, that We don't need volunteers at this time. We were told that if we wanted to help, we should just make a financial donation to the Salvation Army or United Way.

With the experiences of Katrina and other major disasters fresh in our collective conscious, we decided to go anyway, to assess the situation and be able to present a better picture to those people in Lawrence that were rightfully concerned about the effectiveness of the relief efforts.

On the night of Friday May 11, in the spirit of offering solidarity to the working class population of Greensburg, members of KMA traveled two hours to Wichita and spent the night there. A mandatory curfew had been imposed on Greensburg, with no one being able to be in the city between 8pm and 8am. So after a nearly sleepless night, we piled into our vegetable oil burning car and made the final two hour drive to Greensburg, careful to not arrive before 8.

Multiple news agencies had reported that because of FEMA, all volunteers were being denied entry at the checkpoints set up outside the city. As we approached the checkpoint, we became really nervous, and tried to make sure we had our story straight.

We were stopped by an armed contingent of Kansas Highway Patrol Officers. We explained that we had come to help with the relief efforts, and after a quick stare and glance into our car, the officer in charge directed us to a red and white tent about half a mile into the town.

It turned out that on Friday the 11th, a week after the tornado destroyed Greensburg, the Americorps organization was finally given permission to establish and coordinate volunteer recovery efforts. Americorps members from St. Louis had set up their base of operations in a large red and white canopy tent that was also being used a meeting place for the residents of the city.

Americorps volunteers proved to be pretty reliable for information, and good contacts to have made while we were down there. Despite the hierarchical and contradictory aims of the national organization, the Americorps people on the ground were the only people really offering any physical recovery aid to the residents of Greensburg.

The four of us from KMA, signed in to the volunteer tent and were given red wristbands that were supposed to identify us as aid workers. We decided not to wait to be assigned a location to work, and instead to travel around the city on foot and meet as many local people as we could.

Our primary goals were numerous. We intended to analyze the situation and assess how our organization could help from Lawrence. If long term physical aid was needed from us, we had to make contacts within the local populace that could offer a place to set up a base camp. We also intended to find out what happened to the prisoners in the county jail during and after the storm, and what the current procedure for those being arrested was. In a highly militarized city, the police and military were the biggest threat to personal safety.

As we traveled further into the ravaged town, it became clear that the photographs I had seen had not done justice to what truly had happened here. All that could be seen was endless devastation in every direction. There wasn't a single building in this area of the town that had been left standing. The devastation was near complete. Every single house we came across in the first moments we entered the town had completely collapsed. Every single tree was mangled and branchless. Memories of watching post-nuclear warfare movies filled my head as we walked around the city.

This was a post-apocalyptic world. The city was eerily empty for the most part. National Guard troops patrolled in Hummers and trucks. Occasionally, a Red Cross or Salvation Army truck would drive by. Very few residents were there working on their homes.

After a short while, we met with several people evacuating belongings from their home. They told us that FEMA had been there for a week, and that all FEMA could offer them was a packet of information. The packet, however, had to be mailed to the recipients, and they had no mailing address! Their entire house had been destroyed. Their mailbox was probably in the next county. All they were left to do was evacuate what few belongings could be saved from their house, and then pull the non-salvageable belongings and scraps of their house to the curb for the National Guard trash crews to haul away.

No agency in the city besides Americorps was offering to help with the removal of this debris, or the recovery of people's homes. FEMA's mission was to safeguard the property of businesses in the area and offer low interest loans to property owners affected. The National Guard was on hand along with the local police, to act as the enforcement mechanism for FEMA, while occasionally hauling debris and garbage out of the city.

The only building in the city that FEMA and others were working in or around was the County Courthouse. When we approached this area, we quickly took notice of the giant air-conditioned FEMA tour buses, along with dozens of trailers that were now housing the City Hall, police dispatch centers, and emergency crews.

The media had reported that residents of the city would be receiving FEMA trailers similar to the ones in New Orleans. The only FEMA trailer I saw was being occupied by police.

At this location, we tried to formulate some answers as to what had happened to any prisoners being housed in the county jail during the storm, as well as the fate of the at least seven people that had been arrested since the storm.

Not a single person could offer us a real answer. As of the writing of this article, we are still working to find the answer to that question. We have ascertained that any prisoners that were in Greensburg during the storm were sent to Pratt County Jail immediately after the storm had subsided. However, we still don't know how many people that accounts for, nor do we know the fate of any arrestees in the week since.

Several of the arrestees after the storm were soldiers from Fort Riley that were sent in to secure the town. They have been accused of looting alcohol and cigarettes from a grocery store. The residents I talked to said that they had been told that the soldiers had just returned from Iraq. Is it a wonder that they would want to get drunk the first chance they could? The social reality of this situation was beginning to really set in. The city was in chaos, not because of the storm, but because of FEMA and the police.

In the immediate recovery after the storm, FEMA and local police not only worked to find survivors and the dead, but also any firearms in the city. As you pass by houses in Greensburg, you notice that some are spraypainted with how many weapons were recovered from the home. This is central Kansas, a region with extremely high legal gun ownership. Of the over 350 firearms confiscated by police immediately after the storm, only a third have been returned to their owners. FEMA and the police have systematically disarmed the local population, leaving the firepower squarely in control of the state.

Later in the day we traveled with an Americorps volunteer that turned out to be the sister of one of the members of the Lawrence anti-capitalist movement. She gave us a small driving tour of the rest of the devastation that we hadn't seen yet, and then deposited us in front of a house of a family that was busy trying to clear out their flooded basement.

Two days of rain had followed the tornado, and with most houses without roofs, anything left inside the house that may have survived the initial storm, was destroyed or at risk of being destroyed. The casualties of the storm weren't just structures and cars... they were memories and loved ones, in the forms of photographs, highschool yearbooks, family memorabilia and momentos. People's entire lives had been swept away by the storm.

We joined in the effort to help clear the basement, and listened to the stories of the storm that the family told us. They explained that they had just spent their life savings remodeling the basement, and now it was gone. It had survived just long enough to save them and some neighbors from the storm.

We removed whatever belongings were left in the basement, and sorted the belongings into five piles. The smallest of the piles by far, as the pile of things that were salvageable and worth keeping. The other piles included one for wood debris, one for metal, one for hazardous waste, and another pile for anything else that needed to be removed. From under one of the piles, a scent of rotting flesh wafted through the air. The family was afraid to look and see what may be hidden under the metal.

As we were preparing to leave the work site after clearing the entire basement, we were thanked heartily by the family and their friends. Next time, one of them said, bring fifty more with you.

Next time we will. It should be obvious to most by now, that the federal, state, and local governments that deal with disasters of this magnitude are not interested in helping the poor or working people that are really impacted. Only through class solidarity from other working people and working together with neighbors and community members will the people of Greensburg be able to survive and rebuild.

Kansas Mutual Aid is in the midst of organizing a more permanent and structured relief effort. We are continuing to make contacts to secure a base camp for our work. We hope to have things organized and solidified by Memorial Day Weekend when we plan to travel back with as many people, tools, and supplies we can take.

Our goals are three fold:

1. To provide direct physical relief support to the residents of Greensburg by being on hand to help salvage their homes, and provide any other physical support they ask of us.

2. To offer solidarity and aid in any future organizing or agitating efforts that will be needed to retain possession of their homes, or to acquire any other physical aid they demand from the government or other agencies.

3. To provide support and protection of human rights during the police and military occupation of the city. We will work to document arrests and ensure that human rights of arrestees are protected.

If you live in Eastern Kansas, or are willing to travel, we need your help and experience. We also need a laundry list of supplies including:

• Money for fuel for our vehicles
• Respirators and filtered face masks
• Headlamps and flashlights (none of the city has power, and there are a lot of basements that will need to be worked in)
• Shovels, pickaxes, prybars, crowbars, sledgehammers, and heavy duty rakes
• Gloves, boots, goggles, construction helmets and other protective clothing
• First Aid supplies
• Water and Food (non-perishable) for volunteers heading down
• Chainsaws and Gasoline
• Portable generators
• You and your experience

Please, if you have anything you can offer, or want to help in the relief, e-mail us at kansasmutualaid@hotmail.com.

We will be hosting a presentation on Monday May 21st at the Solidarity Center in downtown Lawrence (1109 Mass Street) at 7pm on our experiences in Greensburg, and on our plans to offer relief in the form of solidarity and mutual aid, and not as charity. Please join us if you can.

There seems like there is much more to say, but with the experience fresh in my mind, it's hard to keep typing. Action and organization is needed more than a longer essay at this moment. In love and solidarity,

Dave Strano
Kansas Mutual Aid member
Lawrence, Kansas

Those of you in the vicinity of Lawrence, Kansas may be interested in attending the information/organizing meeting this Monday at 7:00pm. For those of you who are out of the area, I’ve contacted Kansas Mutual Aid to ask what the best way for us to send money and/or supplies is. I’ll post an update once I get an answer back.

Further reading:

• Neille Ilel, Reason (December 2006): A Healthy Dose of Anarchy
• Kansas Mutual Aid website

Here’s a recent correspondence from a friend of human greatness, apparently in response to my celebrations of Tyrannicide Day on the Ides of March. Here’s what he has to say on behalf of the man who publicly boasted of killing or enslaving one third of the population of Gaul:

From: Paul
Date: 9 April 2007 4:44 AM
Subject: How dare you…

(((This message was submitted by Paul [e-mail address redacted] using the online contact form)))

Just who do you think you are, berating such a man as Caesar? Caesar was a man greater than any of us could ever hope to be, and the anniversary of his murder is a date to be mourned, not celebrated. Of course, most people are so blinded by Shakespeare’s interpretation of Caesar that they can’t even see his greatness. Caesar fought for Rome, and only for Rome; he was kind to those that surrendered, forceful to those that resisted, and vengeful to those that betrayed. What do you expect? Do you expect anyone to simply sit back at swallow betrayal after betrayal with no retaliation? Do you expect anyone of that time to allow Rome’s enemies to threaten Rome and her protected peoples? Do you expect anyone to stand quietly while he is stripped of the power he earned? Pompey and the Senate, despite Caesar’s numerous efforts for peace, forced his hand by not allowing him, a man who had done so much for Rome, to even return to the city. I would have done no differently, and anyone who would has no self-respect and is a doormat. Caesar, in all his greatness, fit neither of these criteria and fought to defend his rights and to secure that which was due him.

Oh, and while I’m at it, I suppose I’ll mention that the Crimean War was a defensive war on Russia’s part; Britain and France landed their troops on the Crimean Peninsula, Russian territory, and Alexander simply tried to fend them off. Czar Alexander may not have been the greatest leader, but don’t bust him on the Crimean War.

–Paul

I would like to say that I am very sorry to the absolutist emperors and military dictators-for-life of the world for any unfair berating that I may have directed against them in the course of my infamous scribbling against my betters. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I am blinded against the greatness of those who so clearly excel at slaughtering, terrorizing, and dominating their fellow human beings.

Paul asked several questions in the course of his message. The answers to them, as I see it, are, in order: abdication, it depends on what you mean, yes, and I most certainly do.

Further reading:

• GT 2006-03-05: Fair’s fair (or: Refuge of Oppression #1)
• GT 2004-12-17

Here’s a notice I received a couple days ago from Amnesty International about a pair of fellow workers recently forced to go into hiding in Zimbabwe out of fear of violence at the hands of the police and the government intelligence agency:

Trade unionists Edward Dzeka and Joyce Muwoni have gone into hiding, after threatening phone calls from the police, who want them to come in for questioning about illegal trade union activities. Edward Dzeka was arrested by the police in September and reportedly tortured. Amnesty International believes he and Joyce Muwoni would be at grave risk of torture if arrested.

Edward Dzeka and Joyce Muwoni are local organizers for the General Agriculture and Plantations Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) in the farming town of Chegutu. Edward Dzeka is also the district chairperson of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). They went into hiding on 3 April after receiving threatening telephone calls from people who said they were officers of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and Central Intelligence Organization (CIO). The ZRP and CIO officers reportedly accused the trade unionists of organizing workers in Chegutu town and on the surrounding farms to take part in the national job stay away’ demonstration organized by the ZCTU on 3-4 April. ZRP and CIO officers called at the GAPWUZ offices on 4 April asking where the two trade unionists were, and later went to look for Edward Dzeka at his home in Chegutu.

Some of the ZRP and CIO officers allegedly threatening Edward Dzeka and Joyce Muwoni are known to the trade unionists. They are believed to be targeting trade union leaders following the national job stay away demonstration.

Edward Dzeka had been arrested with 10 other trade unionists on 13 September 2006 for organizing peaceful protests for the ZCTU. The 11 trade unionists were reportedly tortured by ZRP officers at Chegutu police station. They have been charged under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and freed on bail.

Amnesty International understands that Edward Dzeka and Joyce Muwoni are being threatened solely for exercising their rights to freedom of association and assembly by organizing a peaceful demonstration as part of their work for GAPWUZ and the ZCTU. The rights to freedom of association and assembly are guaranteed under Section 21 of Zimbabwe’s Constitution, Articles 10 and 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Zimbabwe is a state party.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Trade unionists in Zimbabwe operate in the face of severe repression. They cannot freely organize peaceful protests and risk being arrested and tortured by the ZRP and CIO.

On 13 March ZCTU officers Gilbert Marembo and Michael Kandukuti were assaulted by ZRP officers who had arrived at the ZCTU offices with a search warrant allowing them to seize all subversive material found on the premises. The officers were from the Law and Order Section of the Criminal Investigations department based at Harare Central police station. The assault was witnessed by lawyers from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. Police later seized fliers on the planned job stay away demonstrations.

On 13 September 2006 in Harare, ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo, Secretary General Wellington Chibebe and First Vice-President Lucia Matibenga were arrested while attempting to engage in peaceful protest about deteriorating social and economic conditions in Zimbabwe. Other ZCTU members were arrested in Harare, Beitbridge, Bulawayo, Mutare and other urban centers. The day before the protests, in an apparent pre-emptive action, police also arrested a number of ZCTU leaders at their homes and offices in Rusape, Gweru, Chinhoyi and Kariba. (See UA 247/06, 14 September 2006, AFR 46/017/2006.)

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:

• calling on the police and CIO to guarantee the safety of Edward Dzeka, Joyce Muwoni and other trade unionists in Chegutu who are being threatened;
• urging the police and CIO to immediately investigate the threats reportedly made to the trade unionists by ZRP officers, and bring those responsible to justice;
• urging the police and the CIO to respect trade unionists’ rights to freedom of association and assembly, guaranteed under Section 21 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, articles 10 and 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Zimbabwe is a state party;
• reminding the police and the CIO that torture is prohibited under international law, as well as under Section 15 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, and that those accused of torture will be held accountable.

APPEALS TO:

Provincial Commanding Officer Mashonaland West Province
Zimbabwe Republic Police
P O Box 292,
Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe
Fax: 011 263 6725370
Salutation: Dear Provincial Commanding Officer

Zimbabwe Police Commissioner
Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri
Zimbabwe Republic Police
Police Headquarters
PO Box 8807
Causeway
Harare, Zimbabwe
Fax: 011 263 4 253 212
Salutation: Dear Commissioner

COPIES TO:

General Agriculture and Plantations Workers’ Union
PO Box 1952
Harare, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
P.O. Box 3549
Harare, Zimbabwe

Ambassador Dr. Machivenyika T. Mapuranga
Embassy of the Republic of Zimbabwe
1608 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington DC 20009
Fax: 1 202 483 9326
Email: info@zimbabwe-embassy.us
Via website: http://www.zimbabwe-embassy.us/contact.html

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after 17 May 2007.

Here’s the letter that I sent to the local police commander, with copies forwarded to the commissioner, the Zimbabwean Embassy, and to GAPWUZ and ZCTU.

Provincial Commanding Officer Mashonaland West Province
Zimbabwe Republic Police
P O Box 292,
Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe

Dear Provincial Commanding Officer:

I am writing to you today as a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, living and working in the United States. I am worried because I heard today that two of my fellow workers, Edward Dzeka and Joyce Muwoni, have gone into hiding after receiving threatening phone calls from people claiming to be officers of the Zimbabwe Republic Police and the Central Intelligence Organization. These calls reportedly threatened Dzeka and Muwoni in retaliation for organizing workers in Chegutu and on the surrounding farms. It is my understanding that Dzeka and Muwoni are being targeted and threatened by local authorities solely for organizing a peaceful demonstration as part of their work for the General Agriculture and Plantations Workers Union of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

Dzeka and Muwoni’s peaceful organizing work is an exercise of their inalienable human right to freedom of aassociation and freedom of political assembly, as recognized and protected under Section 21 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, as well as articles 10 and 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I urge you to protect the rights of my fellow workers in Zimbabwe–and to live up to Zimbabwe’s constitutional and international treaty obligations–by guaranteeing the safety of Edward Dzeka, Joyce Muwoni, and any other trade unionists in Chegutu subject to similar threats. I also urge the police and CIO to immediately investigate the reports of threats made against trade unionists by ZRP and CIO officers, and bring to justice any officers responsible for making these threats against peaceful union organizers.

My fellow unionists and I are following situation in Zimbabwe with grave concern, sir. They and I would appreciate a reply from you as soon as possible. In view of the above information, we urge you to investigate this situation and act as quickly as possible to assure the safety of trade unionists from threats or violence. Thank you for looking in advance for your time and, I hope, your prompt action in this urgent matter.

Sincerely,
Charles W. Johnson
Member, Industrial Workers of the World IU 640

You can help by writing your own appeal in support of Dzeka and Muwoni. If it helps, you should feel free to rip off my own letter as shamelessly as you like.

Just a reminder that you have just under two more weeks to submit the annual accounting of yourself to the State. Do be sure to turn over any of the tribute that you haven’t rendered yet for the privilege of working for a living without being locked in a cage for the next several years of your life. All that protection isn’t free, and the government will be protecting the hell out of you in the upcoming year whether you asked for it or not.

In honor of the event, here’s Monday’s re-run of Calvin and Hobbes, courtesy of GoComics:

Moe: Hey Calvin, it’s gonna cost you 50 cents to be my friend today.

Calvin: (indignantly) And what if I don’t want to be your friend today?

Moe: (smiling) Then the janitor scrapes you off the wall with a spatula.

Calvin: (aside) Heck, what’s a little extortion among friends?

Further reading:

• GT 2007-03-26: Regulatory language
• GT 2004-04-07: Death and Taxes