Solidarity statement from prisoners in the U.S. to the migant rights movement

Solidarity with the French Student and Worker Movement and Migrant
Worker's Movements in the United States!

Over the course of the last several months the world has seen workers from
all walks of life start to self organize and challenge the rule of the
state and corporations that actively exploit them. The same conditions
that set the stage for millions of workers and students to strike and shut
down the nation of France have caused "immigrant" workers and people of
color within the United States to organize for their own rights.

The rise of control of global capitalism brings with it new repression but
also new resistance. Whether it is a state like France that worked to
subject the workers to laws that strip them of the few rights guaranteed
to them, or the United States government trying to expel and criminalize
migrant workers inside the United States, capitalism's attack on the
worker's comes with a cost.

As millions took (and still take) to the streets, and the again it seems
that anything is possible, we must start to question the very foundations
upon which our societies are built on. Can economic, social and political
relations that produce warfare, genocide, racism, exploitation, hunger,
poverty, homelessness, prisons, sexism, and homophobia really ever give us
freedom?

The movements that now, at this very moment, are challenging the hegemony
of global capital are not new. For centuries people have resisted the rise
of authoritarian power structures and fought for freedom at all costs. The
movements of migrants in the United States are joined with movements of
workers in Argentina, Indigenous people in Mexico, students in France,
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, resistance organizers in Iraq,
Campesinos in Brazil, dissidents in Belarus, and those that fight for
freedom all over the world.

As those struggling for freedom in the context of the anti-prison
movement, we as affiliates of the Allied Resistance Network send our
strongest wishes of solidarity to the re-emerging workers' and migrants'
movements spreading across the globe. We fight the same fight, whether it
is in the streets, our workplaces, or the prison yard.

The movements for freedom do not exist separately from each other. Here in
the United States, where over 2 million of the poorest populations are
locked away in cages, we know firsthand the hardships and horrors of a
society based on exploitation and authoritarian power structures that give
the few the control over the many.

When Representative Dane Rohrbacher of California said, "Let the prisoner
pick the fruit" in response to a question of how the United States would
fill the labor vacuum left by deporting some 12 million undocumented
workers, he brought to the surface the very nature of the system.
Enslavement and free labor is more important than human rights. The
biggest threat to the control of the rich over our lives are organized and
militant workers' and oppressed peoples' movements.

As more people across the glove start to organize to take back the power
that has been stripped from them, it is more important than ever to
remember those struggling across the many fronts of this fight. We call on
those on the outside, in the movements that are active in the streets and
the communities, to not forget that we too are struggling back here in the
cages. Just as we offer our solidarity and support for the work you are
doing on the outside, we ask for your solidarity and support for the
efforts that we are a part of on the inside.

As the struggles on all fronts intensify, we need each other more than
ever. Neo-liberal capitalism, through policies like NAFTA, CAFTA, the
tightening of control over migration, and foundations like the World Bank
and International Monetary Fund, has made prisoners of us all, whether we
can see the bars of the cages or not.

If we are to win, we must start to develop working relationships that
bridge the movements in the streets with those in the prisons. So to our
comrades in the streets around the world, we extend our thoughts and love
to you and your struggle, as we also struggle against domination.

Reject the Senate and House Immigration Reform Bills! No criminalization
of migrants! For a world without borders! For a world without capitalist
exploitation! For a world without cages!

In solidarity,

The Black August Committee
(Hannibal Cujo Jogintaba Shabazz)
Eric L. Ward #1140647
Coffield Unit
Rt. 1 Box 150
Tennessee Colony, TX 75884

Kemoria Bright Cloud Smith #696218
Connally Unit
899 FM 632
Kenedy, TX 78119-4516

Sunz and Sistaz of Light
Jose Blaze Cruz #14065-074
USP Big Sandy
PO Box 2068
Inez, KY 41224

Missouri Prisoner Labor Union
Jerome White-Bey #37479
Southeast Correctional Center
300 East Pedro Simmons Dr.
Charleston, MO 63834

Dustin Walker #119839/E114
Miami Correctional Facility
PO Box 900
Bunker Hill, IN 46914

Jonathan Cochran #1095008
HU 6-C-210
Jefferson City Correctional Center
8200 Fenceline Road
Jefferson City, MO 65101

Thomas "JJ" Hicks #18231-058
FCI McKean
PO Box 8000
Bradford, PA 16701

Kansas Mutual Aid
PO Box 442438
Lawrence, KS 66044

To contact Allied Resistance:
Allied Resistance
c/o Kansas Mutual Aid
PO Box 442438
Lawrence, KS 66044
http://www.alliedresistance.org
kansasmutualaid [at] hotmail.com