To us, it is not a question if we will win our freedom, it is a matter of how and when we will do it!

JUSTICIA Y LIBERTAD PARA TODOS: CONFERENCE ON RAZA PRISONERS AND COLONIALISM

Annual Chicano Mexicano Prison Project (CMPP) Conference On Raza Prisoners and Colonialism.

Bulletin No. Two June 10, 2006

Since 1997, the Chicano Mexicano Prison Project (CMPP) has organized its annual Conference On Raza Prisoners and Colonialism. This year's conference will be organized under the banner of Justicia y Libertad Para Todos (justice and freedom for all). Conferences have been held in San Jose, Oxnard, Riverside, and San Diego. The conferences have consisted of panel discussions, workshops, testimonies, and speakers. This year's conference will take place at the Centro de Accion Popular, corner of 11th and Hope St. (425 W. 11th St.) in Los Angeles, on June 24.

THE PRISON SYSTEM IS AN INSTRUMENT OF OPPRESSION AND COLONIZATION

The Chicano Mexicano Prison Project (CMPP), founded in 1993 by Union del Barrio, has been one of the must consistent groups doing work around the question of prisons and their relationship to capitalism and colonialism-imperialism (also known as Global Capitalism). The CMPP's annual conferences have been organized under the following objectives:

1. To bring clarity to the question of Prisons-U.S Criminal Justice System and its role in keeping Mexicanos (other nationalities) oppressed and colonized. We want to expose people to the realilty that the main goal of the criminal justice system (prisons, police, police, district attorneys, judges, etc.) is not one of bringing about law and order, but rather it is a capitalist-colonialist conspiracy to use the prison system as an instrument of oppression and colonization, while at the same time make literally billions of dollars through the creation of what most today call the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC).

2. To create space where truly progressive and revolutionary forces can share perspectives and information on this critical question. The conferences struggle to challenge a situation where the question of the mass incarceration of Raza, Africans, and other oppressed nationalities are being defined by right-wing racist demagogues or petty bourgeois liberals who have no intention or the ability to truly sum-up the nature of the so-called criminal justice system and PIC. The CMPP conferences therefore serve as a voice for those who are most affected (community, youth, poor, and workers) by the PIC and thus more willing to confront its existence.

3. To forge a network of activists who will work in unity and in a principled fashion, using the science of struggle to bring about a just, democratic, and peaceful society. Presently, the progressive and revolutionary tendencies within our movement continue to be an extremely small minority, with little or no influence over the thought and actions of the majority of our people. The CMPP believes that the creation of network of committed activists will help us resolve this situation.

4. To strategize and formulate tactics that will make our struggle more effective. To find ways to include the question of prisons as part of the over all struggle for human rights and national liberation. Our aim is to make the question of prisons an integral part of the struggle for self-determination.

6. To assist each other in the publication of pamphlets, books, newsletters, bulletins, and all other forms of communication, as a means by which to break the hold that the colonialist-capitalist media has over the minds of the great majority of people (of all races and nationalities), keeping us ignorant of the true motives for the existence of repressive laws (Three Strikes, Prop 21, HR 4037, etc.) and the PIC.

THE FOCUS OF THE CONFERENCE WILL BE TO SHARE, LEARN, AND UNITE

This year's Conference On Raza Prisoners and Colonialism will take the form of four round table discussion. The discussions will focus on:

1. The question of prisons and it relationship to the overall struggle for the national liberation of the Mexicano people.

2. Prison Violence, specially between Mexicanos and Africans, and how this issue plays out in the streets of our community and derails the unity necessary to advance the struggle against all forms of oppression and the liberation of our communities.

3. Continuing the work to build a network of activists and creating a plan of action based on science (proven strategies and tactics) and principled unity.

4. The importance of youth and women in our struggle against the Prison Industrial Complex.

The round table discussions will have a facilitator, main discussant, and recorder. The discussant will begin the dialogue with introductory comments that will generate discussion and critique, and in turn lead to solutions and tactics to be included in a plan of action. The discuss groups will function in a round table fashion, allowing everyone to provide or share information, and learn from each other.

CONFRONTING OUR OWN LIMITATIONS

While we would like to see a larger conference, the realities facing us at this particular period of history, do not enable us organize a larger event. In addition to limited resources, there is still very little interest (relatively speaking) on the question of prisons among activists and the masses of our people. One of the reasons that we find ourselves under these circumstances is based in fact the racist corporate-controlled media is tremendously effective in confusing and brainwashing the masses of people on this issue, as well as other critical questions of our time (war, hunger and poverty, injustice, destruction of our earth, etc.).

Nevertheless, the CMPP is dedicated to finding the solution to our oppression and finding the road that will lead us to liberation. We believe that only a serious, tightly organized and politically advanced organization can defeat the enemies of the masses and create a just, peaceful, and free world. To us, it is not a question if we will win our freedom, it is a matter of how and when we will do it!