Statement for December 3 Events

BY MARILYN BUCK

To everyone who supports political prisoners, especially you who have been political prisoners and continue to struggle for we who are absent, we the hidden, thank you. Thank you all for being here for political prisoners worldwide.

More of us would be in the darkness and depths of imperialism, militarist and dictatorial dungeons if you did not keep the light and candles lit to keep us visible. We would be whited out before the glaring interrogation lights or the searchlights that deny sleep as part of torture to grind down our lives without the support of our movement, groups, and people who believe in human rights and dignity as well in the international agreements like the Geneva Accords and Declaration of Human Rights, so hard fought for.

This is a gruesome time for political prisoners to be. The U.S. naked embrace of torture, disappearance and isolation has been appalling. But it is significant that this syphilitic, demented prepotentate is stripping itself bare. Ironic, really, when stripping prisoners bare is one of the implements of degradation so commonly used. But we live in ironic times. We in the U.S. have an autocratic, demagogic president who blithely compliments Latin America on being free of military dictatorships. Perhaps he has forgotten that his family, his advisors and cronies – his government of the School of the Americas and CIA assassins – trained and financed those military coups in the 1960s and 70s with their torturers, disappearances and execution of people like us, like you.

So here we are. Here many of us still are, imprisoned from the Philippines to Turkey to Haiti to the U.S. In every country that is a stooge and henchman for global imperialism, on every continent, there are POWs and political prisoners of conscience. More than a few of us have been here for an entire generation. More are coming. We are alive, though some of us may be silent, waiting; our hearts still beat and shine like jewels – like Nazim Hikmet wrote – in the right side of our breast. The human rights side, the justice side, the side of the people world wide who have borne the depredations and degradations of white supremacist, neo-colonial war and rape of the land, resources, and bodies.

Sadly, we can’t last forever. We are women and men who are being ground down daily. Some who are silent, scream from being driven insane, out of their minds. Isolation and constant repression does destroy, especially after 10 years or 20 years or 30 years. Those of us who are still relatively intact are fortunate to be so. I believe your support and efforts have helped to save our sanities. Certainly, you have saved mine. We need your voices, your ongoing and fresh efforts on our behalf, in this battle for humanity and justice. Carry on the tradition – the tradition of struggle for justice, humanity and socialism.

Hasta la victoria siempre! Free all political prisoners.

Marilyn Buck, 00482-285
Unit C, 5701 8th Street, Camp Parks
Dublin, CA
94568 USA