| Return to Shaka Sankofa's Homepage |
BIANCA JAGGER'S Statement on Shaka and George W Bush
When I witnessed the execution of Gary
Graham at the Death House in Huntsville, Texas in June last year,
I was confronted by a shocking reality.
A man in his thirties, the prime of
life, was going to be killed in cold blood by officials who probably considered
themselves decent, law-abiding individuals.
They acted with all of the clinical
precision of an operating theatre.
This was a man I had come to know as
a person and firmly believe to be innocent.
At his request, I had come to witness
his final moments on earth.
I stood four feet away, gazing through
a Plexiglas window and I could see Gary,
tied to a hospital trolley, his head
held by leather restraints.
I could see that his body was black
and blue.
He was about to be injected full of
deadly poisons.
Death by lethal injection.
A cruel and inhumane way to end a man's
life, a state sanctioned murder.
Gary Graham's execution seems as barbaric
today as it did at the time.
GEORGE W. BUSH,
THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE MOST POWERFUL NATION IN THE WORLD, IS A MAN THAT
COULD HAVE STOPPED THAT DEATH.
LIKE A MODERN
PONTIUS PILATE, MR BUSH WASHED HIS HANDS OF THE AFFAIR.
Right until the end George W. Bush,
as Governor of Texas, was urged to look again at Gary's case.
I and countless thousands in the United
States and throughout the world implored
Mr Bush to issue a 30-day reprieve
and allow time for crucial evidence to be
heard by the courts.
Gary claimed he was innocent during
his last statement.
"I would like to say that I am an innocent
black man. It is a lynching that is
happening in America tonight."
I believed that he was telling the
truth. Gary was sentenced to die based on
sole eyewitness evidence.
Six witnesses said that the killer was
not Gary Graham. His was surely a deserving case for
clemency. He was only 17 at the time of the crime.
His lawyer was totally incompetent
and failed miserably to present vital
evidence at the trial.
Gary could have got the justice he deserved,
even at the last moment.
However, neither Mr Bush nor his appointees
on the state clemency board
intervened and Gary was killed.
Yesterday's inauguration is not the
only one that has seen George W. Bush making
stirring declarations.
During his inauguration as Governor
of Texas on 17 January 1995,
Mr Bush said, ''we must make Texas
a beacon state''.
Perhaps Americans should take a closer
look at his record in Texas. Let us recap.
During George W. Bush's 5-year Texas
governor ship 152 men and women were put to death, almost twice the number
killed in any other state in 2 entire decades.
4 juvenile offenders were executed,
more than in any other jurisdiction in the world during this time and in
clear violation of international law.
Even China, which executes more people
than any other nation, stops short of executing children that commit
crimes.
Nevertheless, are capital convictions
in Texas safe and were those men and women killed by the Lone Star State
actually guilty?
Whilst running for president Mr Bush
said, "I am confident that every person that has been put to death
in Texas on my watch, has been guilty of the crime charged and had full
access to the courts".
The truth is that never has there been
so much concern about wrongful
convictions among the 3,700-plus US
death-row population.
George W. Bush claims to be a "compassionate conservative".
HOW CAN A COMPASSIONATE PERSON SIGN DEATH WARRANT AFTER DEATH WARRANT?
The election year saw 40 executions
in Texas, an annual record in recent
times. The conveyor belt of death rarely
stopped.
I truly believe that in generations
to come virtually all Americans will be appalled that these killings where
part of a justice system in a country that has proclaimed itself the world's
leading force for human rights and has for centuries celebrated liberty,
freedom and the pursuit of happiness.
Now, at the start of a new century,
the killings go on.
It took an investigation by students
in Illinois to reveal that 13 prisoners awaiting execution there had been
totally innocent.
The Illinois Governor was so shocked he called an immediate halt to all further executions.
While the rest of the world is abandoning the cruelty of capital punishment, the USA is fast approaching its 700th execution since resuming capital punishment in 1977.
More than half of these has occurred in the past five years alone.
This state of affairs cannot go on and
Mr Bush must listen to reason and at least call
a halt to federal executions pending
complete abolition across the country.
Bill Clinton claims that the USA became
a "more decent, more humane" country
under his presidency and "the leading
force for human rights around the world".
However, the facts on human rights in
the land of the free do not bear out
his grand claims.
Police brutality across several police departments in the US continues to horrify many experts and throw doubt on the fairness of policing in this firearms-obsessed country.
Abuses have included the misuse of pepper spray and police dogs, deaths from dangerous restraint holds, and shootings by police in disputed circumstances.
In February 1999 an unarmed West African
immigrant Amadou Diallo was shot 19 times
(out of 41 shots fired) by 4 NYPD policemen
as he stood outside his home after officers apparently mistook him for
a criminal suspect.
Following the acquittal of the 4 policemen in February 2000, there were large demonstrations in New York calling for social justice and law enforcement reforms.
America is a country largely built on
immigration and Amadou's death is not
the only one to raise questions about
the treatment of minorities in the USA.
In 1999, a NYPD officer was sentenced
to 30 years' imprisonment for the torture
of a Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.
The officer had beaten and kicked Abner
and sodomised him with a broken stick, causing serious injuries to his
small intestine and bladder.
Those who like me were born elsewhere
and have appreciated the hospitality
afforded by the American melting pot
tradition can only fear that too many racial and ethnic minorities are
suffering in the United States.
The disproportionate number of minority
prisoners in the bulging jail
system seems to support this view.
In addition, abuse in US jails has included
physical and sexual abuse and use
of electro-shock weapons.
Prisoners have reportedly died at the
hands of violent guards and many abuses are
said to be taking place in isolation
units in high-security prisons, the so-called "supermaximum security"
segregation units, where growing numbers of prisoners are being kept in
long-term isolation in small, sometimes windowless cells, in conditions
of reduced sensory stimulation.
All this has got to stop and the USA has got to start taking the protection of fundamental human rights seriously - not just in foreign lands, but also in its own country. Only when it gets its own house in order can Bush's America claim to stand for freedom and justice.
When we reflect on the fine words of
yesterday's presidential inauguration
of George W. Bush as 43rd president
of the United States of America, we should
also remember the defiant last words
of Gary Graham.
"I'm an innocent
black man that is being murdered. What is happening here is an
outrage for any
civilised country."
These words are a chilling reminder
that Bush's USA is home to racial
division and bitter injustice.
IT IS A PLACE
WHERE LIFE, LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS ARE ALL TOO OFTEN REPLACED BY THE PURSUIT
OF DEATH, IMPRISONMENT AND HATRED.
Source: Bianca Jagger - The Sunday
Express, London.
| Return to Shaka Sankofa's Homepage |
