A court appointed examiner measures the bodies of darker skinned humans to determine their age while the case against another examiner held responsible for a number of murders during the Nazi era is dragged out for years. This man, instead of being tried was able to determine the fate of humans year after year although criticism had been made as of the early 1970s that he, Dr. Gross, even after 1945, might still be using scientific knowledge which led to the murder of the Nazi victims under his responsibility. How is it possible that racist court examiners are allowed to continue their inhuman work? The Gross case makes clear how the buddy system functions within the justice system. In exactly the same way, racist police activity was also covered over just recently. Of the 699 complaints of police brutality in the years 1997/98, only one was not crushed - in the court room at the latest. Instead, the victims of police violence must reckon with convictions for serious bodily injury, resisting state authority and slander. Conscious of the hopeless situation, complaints such as those made after the police attack of a refugee home are rare. There, the police stormed the home of Africans who were seeking refugee - without a search warrant - and treated the people like animals. The police and justice system would like to place the mishandled people within the context of a supposed "Nigerian drug Mafia", as they have tried for months with the prisoners from "Operation Spring". On the other hand, "Operation Spring" nevertheless has a very decisive political dimension: one day before "Operation Spring", the Viennese FPÖ started their advertisement in which they requested the Minister at the time, Schlögl, to act against the "Nigerian drug Mafia". We know today that the investigation against presumed dark skinned drug dealers had been going on for several months. Therefore, today there is no question that there must have been a flow of information between sections of the Viennese executive system and the FPÖ.
And what did the "Kronen Zeitung" report on the day after "Operation Spring"? Four weeks after Marcus Omofuma's death, they railed against the evil black refugees who only come here to poison our innocent white children. "If it is true that among those drug dealers arrested last night some are the same as those who demonstrated against Schlögl with taped mouths, then the tower of lies of these oppressed, worthy of protection 'refugees' is broken. Everyone knows that such political lies exist. Now the evidence will be delivered." (Peter Gnam in the Kronenzeitung on 28. Mai 1999, one day after "Operation Spring")
In the same editorial, reference was made to the approaching European parliament and National Parliament elections (with the remark that the Greens and Liberal Forum had been especially involved in the opposition to the "successful" wirebugging operation). In this way, in the course of "Operation Spring", innocent, petty and insignificantly criminal drug addicts, etc. were thrown into the same category in which later all humans with dark skin would land - namely, that of the "Nigerian Drug Mafia". The political staging of the "Operation Spring", in addition, replaced the major themes of the National Parliament election of the FPÖ-Vienna (and in some areas also the ÖVP). That is actually the most dubious part of this whole affair as political gain was won from accusations which in retrospect turned out to be empty and in that way, the ground for further procedures was already prepared. The police action against Africans a few days before the National Parliament election should also be pointed out, in which the police's alleged offences against the drug laws were already made known several months before. The inhumane and racist action of the executive in Traiskirchen in January of 2000, also falls into this series of inappropriate attacks.
Beyond all proportions are also the police actions and wire bugging attacks and also the high fines for the African dealers in light of the fact that, "the original grave accusation of the opponent of organized criminality is no longer being made" (Standard, 30.3.99). This accusation, however, formed the initial base of (suspicion) for the implementation of the major wire bugging attack.
In court, the claim of innocence is no longer valid for African's. "With Africans we are not talking about refugees who are trying to survive with a few "packs" (slang for packs held in the mouth that are filled with heroin or cocaine), but rather they are people who come here extra in order to make money." The state attorney in a case against a supposed drug dealer. It seems that the state attorneys and judges are biased, in addition there are no lack of pre-judgements made in the processes and careless behavior with the contradictions in the damaging statements. Many judgements were made based merely on the statements of anonymous witnesses. According to the witness protection program, no questions can be asked about more specific circumstances of the deed or further details. It is also not possible to check if the witness even speaks the language of the person who was being listened to as that could reveal their identity.
What legal base allows dozens of civil police to check id's in the hallway in front of the courtroom where accused Africans are being tried for dealing drugs, and to add to the routine check the comment that it is forbidden to take notes during the trial? What legal base allows judges to demand id's from observers and journalists in the middle of the trial; just at that moment when witnesses claim that they are being threatened?

Should organizations which point out the questionable behavior of the justice and police be discredited and thus made a subject of police and legal investigations?
Since November 16, 1999 visitation permission have been denied to people who want to visit African prisoners. This refusal of visitation rights is limited to those who are part of GEMMI (Society for Human Rights of those Marginalized and Immigrants), see box, and is also extended to journalists who try to report on the situation of the African prisoners. This makes it that much more difficult for the imprisoned as often they are not explained their rights and sit in detention for months without seeing a lawyer. Africans often have only the clothing that they wore at the time they were arrested. In prison the racism goes so far that they are often denied meals.
And going back to Gnam's statement in a revised context: if those who were responsible for "Operation Spring" should turn out to be the same among the ranks of the executive system who later threw the apartment door on the heads of wives of dark skinned people with the war cry ("Nigerwhore", "bimbo slut"), masked men who pull people out of taxis, storm refugee advise centers and criminalize homosexuals, then the political staging of "Operation Spring" would also appear in a new light.
Drugs and Capitalism
The leading heads of the free-West seem to carry out a constant enraged war against drugs: In their programs and bills they call for the merciless battle on drug related crime, in the congress they strut the new tracing methods and justify a police and surveillance state with the need to protect the youth while at the same time they present those who are supposedly guilty in the media.
Yet despite all of the measures, the number of consumers continues to rise. The profit of the large dealer grows with the downfall of the Junkies, who often finance their addiction by dealing on the streets. If the talk is of a major attack on some drug Mafia or another, it is usually these little fish denounced on TV and in the papers.
Through this type of reporting, headlines suggest that it is in the ruling interest of the West to fight drug related crime and the misery caused by it. Actually, a profitable market has arisen here that does not evade the capital market, or through petty dealers who work under their own control, want to escape from it. Apart from weapons, drugs are the most important source of income of the free market system. If drug bosses dissolved their million dollar accounts, several major banks would go bankrupt. The actual bosses and winners of the lucrative business are usually left alone by the media, politics, officials and the justice system. In this series we would like to investigate the way that this accompliceship works. "Everybody's talking about crime, tell me who are the criminals," (Peter Tosh).
Ruling drug politics based on the example of the USA:
Long before the story of the "black African drug Mafia" was told here, it was spread in the USA to justify police and legal measures.
The United State's drug policy has become a role model for Europe's counter insurgency of experts. These policies shows how racism and repression can be sold in such a way that the media and with that the broad - white - majority of the population approve of it. In that way, domestic surveillance policies and strengthening of laws could be brought in.
Simultaneous to criminalization under the pretext of fighting drugs, drugs were pumped into the ghettos to repress potential resistance. Poisoning young people with hard drugs and repression under the pretext of acting against drug dealers goes hand in hand. Drug policy is not only interesting for domestic policies. Based on the Iran-Contra affair, we would like to illuminate that drugs are a topic relevant to war - either as a means of payment for weapons, as a profitable raw material source or as an argument if the war is being carried out under the pretext of fighting drugs.
The prehistory of (North)American drug policy
The spread of hard drugs in the USA is always within the context of simultaneous wars, experiments in the weapons industry and programs to repress revolt. Also, the criminalization of soft drugs such as Cannabis is directed towards the needs and interests of the industry, in this case it serves to eliminate the ecologically sound hanf plant as a competitor to synthetic fibers.
Tests with hallucinogenics, especially LSD, on GI's and civil test persons should show the military's control over consciousness, behavior and the steering mechanisms of fear and aggression. They mainly took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s. With the increased aggression in Southeast Asia (Korea, Vietnam, Laos...) Heroin made its way into major American and European cities. It wasn't just some long distance travelling hippies who were interested in spreading these drugs, but rather the secret service and military.
Nixon's secretary wrote in his diary in 1969, "(President Nixon) emphasized that we have to face the fact that the blacks are actually the whole problem. The key lies in establishing a system that takes that into account without appearing publicly." (quoted in the Revolutionary worker, see list of sources).
The economic development in the 1960s and 1970s intensified the situation in the ghettos - they felt nothing from the economic situation and the crisis which hit them was doubled. A crisis that was actually the feedback from the USA's permanent imperialist war being carried out against numerous peoples to throw off colonial burdens. Mainly the aggression in Vietnam and the resulting defeat worried the Nixon administration. In their own backlands new movements arose, mainly in the ghettoes, a revolutionary situation came about, groups such as the Black Panther Party taught the government how to fear.
The "War against Drugs" was already the buzz word that was supposed to liquidate this movement. While hundreds of young Afro-Americans were victims of the troops and police units that stormed the ghettos (primarily during the demonstrations between 1965 and 1968), whereas revolutionary leaders such as Malcolm X and Fred Hampton were murdered by state appointed assassins, another weapon began to show its effects. It was called COINTELPRO.
The plan was to pump heroin into the ghettos: Heroin turns rebels into ego centered petty criminals. A pretext for repression and racism. Heroin brings the cleansing men money to finance their wars. Today, this project is no longer a secret. Official representatives of the CIA admitted in mainstream media what everyone already knew: under the CIA and government's protection, strawmen brought Heroin into the ghettos to eliminate the resistance. Shortly before his murder, Malcolm X had already discovered this fact by simply placing the simple question: "who has the airplanes and ships to bring that stuff into the country?" The misery and the destroyed hopes which heroin set off in the Afro-American community was only a bitter taste for what was to come - crack - the epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s which was set off in connection with the financing of the contras.
When the Sandanistas replaced the hated Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, the CIA began to recruit Somoza's former generals. The Contras should destabilize the country with a dirty war - a dictatorship meant stability for the USA whereas a free Nicaragua would be a role model for all of Central and South America and close the gate for the imperialistic neighbor to the north.
In 1981 Reagan named William Casey as the CIA - Director. In 1982 he started the "Operation Eagle", to found finance and militarily and logistically arm the Contras. Oliver North, Deputy Director in the office for political and military affairs at the national security council (NSC), had already led the arms deliveries to Iran, the so-called "Project Recovery". Now he took on what, as of 1984 was called "Project Democracy"; support for the Contras which bypassed the congress and the public. In 1984 the congress forbid support of the Contras after the CIA were caught mining the harbors in Nicaragua. That did not affect the 100 Mill. Dollar military aid which had already been approved of previous to this "Boland Amendment", but this sum was, by far, not enough for the strategies of the Pentagon. Leading members of the Reagan administration then tried to place secret operations in the National Security Council to assure further financing.
Friendly governments were asked for support - such as Saudi Arabia, Brunei, South Korea, various military governments in South and Central America and Israel. The Saudi's were willing to give the Contras 32 Mill. $, Brunei paid 10 Mill. $, Israel was willing to send up to fifty Spanish speaking military advisors to the DRF (Contra group). An estimated 30 mill. came from the arms deals with Iran (Irangate).
Yet the financial resources were still not enough. As of 1982, in a small radius, drug money was used for the Contras and now this area was meant to be expanded. Through middle men and pro-American governments from South and Central America, contact was made with well known drug dealers such as the exiled Cuban George Morales and Columbian cartels. The deal was as follows: the drug bosses would deliver weapons to the Contras, and on the return trip cocaine would be imported into the USA under the protection of the CIA detouring the customs control and the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency - officials of which were allegedly involved). The business then ran as planned.
Airplanes landed from Fort Lauderdale and Opa Locka with weapons for the Contras in Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador and flew loaded with cocaine back to the USA. The most well known emporium was the John Hull, a CIA agent's giant ranch with start and landing fields in northern Costa Rica where Contras, agents and drug dealers met. The Columbian dealer Carlos Lehder later testified that through this farm alone, 30 tons of cocaine were exported per year.
Cocaine flooded the ghettos of Los Angeles and other major American cities processed as cheap, previously unheard of, crack. Drug dealers and Contras also shared directly in the distribution in the USA, under the umbrella protection of the American authorities. One of these was Daniel Blandon, who was signed on the Crips and Bloods, who distributed the stuff in the Ghetto in LA. Today he works for the DEA, as do many of the major dealers involved in the case (i.e. Erwin Meneses).
Also Daniel Noriega, former CIA - agent and ruler of Panama supported the transfer. Through airplanes, pilots and in between he also helped out with cocaine. Whereas internationally suspected drug dealers did a profitable business with the CIA (which in the meantime has the nickname "Cocaine Import Agency") and the American government, under the Reagan administration, the "War on drugs" was mobilized. Anti - drug campaigns such as Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" initiative were accompanied by police and repressive measures which were aimed almost exclusively at Afro-American youths who were hidden away in prisons, detention centers and reform schools by the thousands. Many police actions ended in death for people with dark skin.
In 1986 a military plane was shot down over Nicaragua, the only survivor was Eugene Hasenfus, an American mercenary who testified about the Contra relationship with Oliver North and the NSC. The case became known to a broad public as the "Iran - Contra scandal" and after initial lies, also from the responsible posts. The dirty drug business has not been sufficiently cleared up to the present day.
In 1996 Gary Webb and two other journalists published an article series; "Dark Alliance: the story of the Crack explosion" in San Jose's "Mercury News". It confirmed that the crack boom first began through this weapons/drug transfer and the accompliceship of Contras, cartels, CIA and the State Department.
An internal CIA investigation denied the involvement of the secret service, but confirmed the Contras involvement to the major drug dealers.
Through the Contra/drug affair the main actors tried the kill two birds with one stone: - the drug sales financed the war in Nicaragua to a great extent and through the involvement of the various marionette governments, also the death squads in the neighboring countries, mainly El Salvador.
- Potential resistance from the ghettos were already nipped at the bud. The drugs made the people broken, rivaled bands of "crackheads" fought each other to maintain dominance in the street sales.
- The "War on drugs" supported the fascist tendencies of the society, surveillance and repression measures took on gigantic proportions. Clinton also considered introducing the "Three strikes and you're out" policy from California at a federal level (live sentence without appeal for the same crime three times). Today there are between two and two and a half million people in American prisons, that is more than three times the amount of 1980 although the number of major crimes has decreased. The majority of the prisoners are either Afro-Americans or Latinos, most are serving sentences for drugs - not for selling, but for mere possession, many for marijuana. Although the majority of crack users are white, 83% imprisoned for crack are black.
- Repression is also "big business". On the one hand is an almost inexhaustible reservoir of cheap labor power without basic rights, on the other hand a strutting repression machinery which is given millions in tax money. The "War on drugs" also gives the USA a good pretext for intervening or stationing troops in countries such as Bolivia and Columbia. In Columbia the fields of small coca farmers have already been destroyed: that sells well as a dedicated anti-drug policy, cuts off undesired competition and raises prices. In the shadow of these actions the military is supported against the leftwing guerillas.
Finally: drug policy in the USA (and probably in all capitalist countries) has always had a racial component.
Racism was the accompanying ideology meant to justify genocide on sixty million original inhabitants (aboriginal or native Americans) and the enslaving of ten million Africans. But also when dealing with addictive substances and stimulants, North America has a long tradition: the base of the English colony rests on the so-called "Triangle Trade": coffee, tobacco and cheap rum were exported to England. The ships which delivered these substances then sailed south to capture Africans who, as slaves, created the basis for the welfare of today's America.
Alcohol was set in against the Indian communities, like heroin and crack are slipped into the ghettos today to break resistance. Noam Chomsky writes: "In my opinion every war against drugs has, practically, nothing to do with the drugs themselves, much more with social and political control, as well as with the goal of maintaining the ruling socio-economic system."
To be continued...
References:
°Hermann Fröschl "Die institutionellen Determinanten der amerikanischen Außenpolitik in der Reagan Administration am Beispiel Irangate", Master's Thesis, Innsbruck 1990
°Michael Levine: The Big White Lie. The CIA and the Cocaine/Crack Epidemic, LA 1993, p.178
°Revolutionary Worker: "Black youth and the criminalization of a generation" Part 1 -3, www.mcs.net - rwor/alv 20/970 - 79/971/crim1.htm as well as numerous additional publications from the Revolutionary worker
° Jürgen Roth: "Schmutzige Hände" , Bertelsmann - Verlag, pp. 175 - 224, 2000 Munich

More Trials on Africans
In the night from the 3rd to 4th of May 2000, the 26 year old Richard Ibekwe died in the youth detention facility Rüdengasse - several days after he was arrested and mishandled. He spent the night sitting on a chair (voluntarily?). Up to now there has been no concrete information about the circumstances surrounding his death. According to police reports he died from drug abuse which is similar to the racist pre-judgement of, and accusations against Marcus Omofuma.
We demand an immediate explanation of the mysterious death in state custody and an answer to the following questions:
+ how is it possible that someone can still die from drugs four days after arrest?
+ why was Richard Ibekwe in the detention facility for youths?
+ why did he have to spend the night sitting?
+ why wasn't he brought to a doctor when there is a doctor available 24 hours a day in a detention facility?
+ why is the death of a person accepted to cover over abuse?
Apparently, lynch justice against African citizens in Austria is justified and hidden behind the pretext of the drug trade.
We demand criminal law consequences for the responsible officers.
We demand that the interior and justice ministers step down.
A stop to the raids on apartments of Africans and asylum and refugee homes.
A stop to the racist police terror and apartheid justice.
We mourn for Marcus Omofuma, who on the 1st of May, 1999 during an attempted deportation by three Austrian officials, was gagged until he died an excruciatingly painful death.
We mourn for the uncountable victims of institutionalized racism in the fortress Europe.