THE Us-PANTHER CONFLICT, EXILE AND THE BLACK DIASPORA: THE PLIGH LARRY WATANI STINER - National African

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THE Us-PANTHER CONFLICT, EXILE AND THE BLACK DIASPORA: THE PLIGHT OF LARRY WATANI STINER
Posted by W. Kabaila on January 19, 2009 at 3:00pm View W. Kabaila's blog

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THE Us-PANTHER CONFLICT, EXILE AND THE BLACK DIASPORA: THE PLIGH LARRY WATANI STINER - National African American Congress Forum

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THE Us-PANTHER CONFLICT, EXILE AND THE BLACK DIASPORA: THE PLIGH LARRY WATANI STINER - National African American Congress Forum

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The US-Panther conflict, exile, and the black Diaspora: the plight of Larry Watani Stiner Larry Watani Stiner and Forward by Dr. Scot Brown (UCLA) Strife between the US Organization and Black Panther Party generated one of the most devastating intergroup rivalries among factions within the Black Power Movement. This feud ultimately yielded violence throughout the black public sphere in southern California, with the most notorious being the fatal clash in January 1969 on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus that left Black Panther leaders Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter and John Huggins dead, and US member Larry Watani Stiner wounded. (1) As both groups and their supporters became more sectarian in this rivalry, so did a lexicon that positioned the Panther's "revolutionary nationalism" at odds with US's "cultural nationalism." Partisan subjectivities notwithstanding, competition for dominance within Los Angeles black nationalist and radical politics supplanted ideological difference as the basis for the US/Panther tensions. Battles over control of certain "turf" occurred in multiple public places in Los Angeles and San Diego, and manifested in mass rallies, community meetings, schools, and among student organizations. Through much of 1968 and 1969, the Black Students' Union at UCLA would emerge as one of the most contentious theaters of this conflict. (2) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) counterintelligence measures provoked and encouraged violence within this California-born sectarianism. Several scholarly works, however, have asserted that undercover agents provoked and participated in the shootings at UCLA. (3) Some have problematically and uncritically resuscitated versions of a story advanced by a Penthouse magazine interviewee named "Othello," who alleged that Larry and George Stiner were FBI agents who orchestrated an assassination of Carter and Huggins. The most powerful rebuttal to the contention of US complicity with the state in the killings of Huggins and Carter has yet to find a public voice, that of Larry Watani Stiner himself. Having spent the last decade in San Quentin Prison, his unpublished memoir goes beyond personal vindication, expanding our understanding of both the spatial and ideological terrain of political exile among Black Power activists. The very notion that Stiner, a cultural nationalist activist, would find himself wrongly imprisoned, exiled, impoverished, and re-imprisoned runs counter to characterizations of cultural nationalists as inherently complicit with the state, in opposition to "revolutionary nationalism." A lingering binary view of the US/Panther conflict in Black Power scholarship obscures FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's monolithic conception of diverse activists and organizations in the black freedom struggle as composite forces within a singular category, "Black nationalist hate groups." For FBI purposes, the "hate group" mantra operated with the same elastic utility as the "communist" label during the late 1940s and 1950s Red Scare. (4) Along with large numbers of African Americans in the latter half of the 20th century, the Stiner family in 1955 migrated westward from Houston, Texas, to Los Angeles when Larry was seven years old. By 1963 his family had bought a home on West 75th Street, off Florence Avenue in South Los Angeles. Two months after Larry graduated from Manual Arts High School, the Watts Rebellion of August 1965 erupted, transforming the politics of black radicalism in Los Angeles. Larry, along with his brother George, joined the cultural nationalist US Organization in 1966. Larry Stiner eventually rose to a leadership position in the US paramilitary wing, the Simba Wachanga. By the late 1960s under the leadership of Maulana Ron Karenga, US had grown into a major black nationalist force in southern California, but its leadership was

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experiencing an ideological and organizational challenge from the Black Panther Party (BPP). Panther chapters in Los Angeles and throughout urban America grew rapidly after a highly publicized armed protest at the California state capitol in Sacramento in the spring of 1967. As the two groups clashed in a contest for position in the black public sphere, the UCLA campus became a fateful arena in which both groups competed for influence over the Black Students' Union. In a struggle over the leadership and direction of the Black Studies Center, the US/Black Panther Party rivalry intensified, exacerbating ever-mounting violent clashes, culminating in the deadly campus shootings on 17 January 1969. (5) The prosecution in the Stiners' case argued that, though never firing a shot during the UCLA incident, Larry and George Stiner were participants in a murder conspiracy. After conviction, the two were sentenced to life in prison. Larry Stiner went to Soledad State Prison and George Stiner went to San Quentin. The sectarianism that enveloped radical politics on the streets did not find an analogue in prison. In fact, Larry had ties with associates of the Black Guerilla Family, whose notable members were known as the Soledad Brothers--George Jackson, John Clutchette, and Fleeta Drumgo. (6) The three were placed in solitary confinement in the same wing as Stiner. Conversations between Stiner and imprisoned Black Panther Party members led to their understanding that both groups had been victimized by state repression and suffered from serious leadership problems. The uniform manner in which the FBI categorized various ideological camps of the Black Power Movement as "Black nationalist hate groups" was akin to Soledad's mass relocation of all suspected militants to San Quentin Prison in the aftermath of the killing a white guard in 1970. Larry Stiner was moved there, along with George Jackson and many others. Jackson was killed by guards at San Quentin shortly thereafter. Jackson's death was one among many systematic killings resulting from the collusion of white guards and inmates who targeted black radicals in San Quentin. In 1974, after numerous attempts on his life, Stiner escaped from San Quentin and fled to Guyana in South America. During this period the Guyanese government under Forbes Burnham gave support and safe haven to African American revolutionary exiles. Upon arrival Stiner was embraced by a community of African American activists living in exile there. (7) As time passed, Stiner would come face-to face with the limits of sanctuary, after attending Working People's Alliance (WPA) meetings led by Walter Rodney, activistscholar and formidable critic of Burn ham's People's Nationalist Congress (PNC). A PNC party minister threatened to have Stiner killed should he continue to express sympathy for the WPA or attend its meetings. In the midst of government repression of dissident voices, Stiner fled to Suriname only months before Walter Rodney was assassinated in Guyana. Suriname was also experiencing political turmoil in the early 1980s, as the regime of Sergeant Desi Bouterse emerged as the ruling force out of the ashes of a protracted civil war. Throughout his exile in Suriname, Stiner subsisted by selling goods such as sugar and soap as well as tshirts and calendars that he printed. In 1982 he moved in with a Surinamese woman, Nisha Nelstein, and they went on to have six children together. The family lived in a small house near the airport, just outside of Paramaribo. By 1992 when the Bouterse dictatorship was forced out and the military activities near the airport increased, Stiner's family was forced to leave their house when it was expropriated for use as a military post. He and his family fled to the interior bush region in 1993 where they lived without electricity or running water. In these desperate circumstances Stiner decided to negotiate his surrender with U.S. government authorities on the condition that his family would be permitted to relocate to the United States. Stiner's reflections illuminate tensions between "revolutionary" ideals and problematic political realities in multiple spaces within the African Diaspora, and the Black Power movements in the U.S., Guyana, and Suriname. Uncertainty and abandonment are predominant themes in the experiences of many Black Power revolutionaries who fled the U.S. to Cuba, Tanzania, Algeria, and other countries. (8) In 1994, in a destitute condition, Larry Stiner surrendered to U.S. authorities and was returned to San Quentin Prison where he remains to this day. (9) What follows is an excerpt from a memoir that Stiner is currently writing. When I scurried up that hill, leaving behind those walls and gun towers surrounding San Quentin Prison on the night of 31 March 1974, I never thought I would see this place again. Serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder in the shooting deaths of two Black Panthers, my brother (and co-defendant) George and I had planned the escape with both inside and outside help. As we reached the grounds outside San Quentin, a car was waiting to assist us in escaping from California's oldest and most violent prison. By the time our absence was discovered the next morning, we were miles away. George has never been seen or heard from again. On 30 March 1974, the day before our escape, my brother and I had an overnight visit with our parents. At 9:00 p.m. we reported to the main security east gate, located just below San Quentin's Gun Tower #1, for the evening count. When we returned, I shared another two hours of stories and laughter with our parents, then said goodnight at around 11:30 p.m. The next morning we were gone. At 8:30 a.m. our stepfather appeared at the security east gate and told a guard that his two sons were missing. When guards investigated, they found two dummies--rolled-up pillows and blankets designed to simulate a body--and a note bidding farewell to our parents. I was eventually driven from Oakland to Memphis, Tennessee, in a U-Haul van by a driver from New York City. In Memphis I was groomed as a traveling preacher, donned minister's robes, and traveled with a group of itinerant preachers to Miami and Puerto Rico. Using a phony driver's license, baptismal papers, and a government clearance to enter Guyana via Trinidad, I boarded the plane and flew out of the country to South America. On 1 May 1974, International Labor Day, I left Trinidad and landed at Guyana's Timeri Airport. At that time Guyana was one of the centers of international Black Power. "Socialist" Prime Minister Forbes Burnham had come to power in the early 1960s in a racially divided and violently contested election-descendants of formerly enslaved African workers and indentured East Indians solidified his base of support
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among the Afro-Guyanese. Burnham also found international credibility by opposing all ties with apartheid South Africa, and through his unequivocal support for black self-determination and African liberation struggles. Almost immediately upon my arrival in Guyana's capital of Georgetown, I joined the bustling refugee community. In 1976, however, Guyana began to experience a severe economic decline. Corruption, high unemployment, and shortages of basic goods led to mass emigration and political unrest. Sugar workers, who comprised mainly the East Indian segment of Guyanese society, went out on strike for over four months; consumer goods virtually disappeared from store shelves. Guyana became the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti. (10) ENCOUNTERS IN GUYANA During the latter 1970s the religious cult the Peoples Temple, led by Rev. Jim Jones, settled in Guyana. In 1978 more than 900 members of the group died in a mass suicide. (11) Stiner had a brief encounter with the group. News of an American settlement [Peoples Temple] sparked considerable outrage among Guyana's political opposition. No parliamentary discussion or debate was ever held on the issue of land allocation to foreigners. The opposition wanted some answers. (12) Three investigative reporters from the oppositional Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) pulled up in a clanking old Land Rover in front of the home of a friend of mine, seeking directions to Jonestown. They had been granted a rare face-to-face interview with Rev. Jim Jones. Curious about what the place looked like, I climbed into the back seat and the five of us headed up the narrow dirt-covered road to Jonestown. I watched as the three reporters were greeted at the doorway by two people before going inside to their scheduled interview with Jim Jones. We stepped outside the Land Rover and waited for their return. While leaning against the hood of the Rover conversing, we observed a group of about forty people, mostly black, busily working in the nearby fields. They spotted us and we politely acknowledged their waves with one of our own. About two minutes later, they were waving at us again. Once more we reciprocated. It was not until after their fourth consecutive wave that we thought their welcoming gestures a bit excessive. When they waved for a fifth time (roughly in two-minute intervals), I concluded that these people of Jonestown were kind of strange. We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and then decided to wait in the Rover to break the cycle of what was becoming more of an obligation than a courtesy. Not more than five minutes later (after we had elected to ignore them), we suddenly found ourselves completely surrounded by Jim Jones's followers. They were enthusiastically waving their hands and exaggerating their smiles. Some of them were so excited that they began banging on the hood of the Rover. Their behavior per se was not necessarily threatening--just overzealously bizarre. My friend casually rolled up the window on his side. The three reporters were returning from the house when suddenly the crowd turned from us and began waving and cheering them onward. They paused for a few confused seconds, then hurriedly got into the Rover, looked over at us and asked, "Wah reeely go on?" The driver quickly started up the engine, tooted his horn, and soon we were on our way back to my friend's home. Without receiving any explanation, the three PPP reporters had been denied their scheduled interview with Jim Jones. Jonestown was a really weird experience. At the University of Guyana, students began to mobilize and organize against Burnham and his pronounced "paramountcy" of the ruling People's National Congress (PNC). Government corruption, austere economic policies, compulsory national service, and rigged elections were some of the major issues surrounded by oppositional outrage. (13) Guyana's renowned young scholar, Dr. Walter Rodney, became Burn ham's chief opponent and a powerful rallying voice of student resistance. (14) Following one of the meetings I had attended, I was informed that the government was considering turning me over to U.S. authorities as an example to other exiles who dared to flirt with, or participate in, activities opposed to the PNC regime. Although I did not feel that I had done anything particularly egregious, I was criticized by the African American exile community for being "naive" and "ungrateful" to Burnham after he granted us sanctuary in his country. My "political excursions" were putting everyone at risk. My reaction was prompt and defensive: "How can you all sit still and pretend like there is no oppression here?" I soon realized just how politically tenuous our sanctuary was. The minister of home affairs summoned me to his ministry to admonish me about my attendance at gatherings sponsored by groups that opposed the Guyanese government. I told him that my presence was merely an educational endeavor and in no way supportive of oppositional views. The minister left me with a rather clear and chilling threat: "The U.S. government would not even claim your corpse if it should mysteriously wash up on our shores." I decided it was time for me to leave Guyana. I fled Georgetown, moved into the bush, then crossed the border into neighboring Suriname. I was in exile once again. FLIGHT TO SURINAME A former Dutch colony, Suriname only achieved independence in 1975. On 25 February 1980, the elected government was overthrown in a military coup. The country became immersed in a civil war that raged on and off for the next six years. Eventually, Desi Bouterse, a sergeant in the army, emerged as the strongest force and ruled for most of the next twelve years. By the time he was driven from power in 1992, unemployment was over 20 percent and the annual per capita income hovered around $500. (15)
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I arrived in the country just days after Bouterse had seized power. At first, I made my living buying household items like soap and sugar to sell across the border in Guyana. Later, I printed and sold calendars, and also made money selling printed t-shirts, incense, insurance, coffee, and recycled products. In 1982 I met a Surinamese woman named Nisha Nelstein. When we began dating, Nisha was already the mother of a young son, Raoul. By the time I turned myself in to U.S. authorities in 1994, Nisha and I had six children of our own. Our family lived in a small house by the Zanderij International Airport, just outside of Paramaribo, Suriname's capital. As the government devoted more resources to battling internal enemies, the airport became a center for military activity. One night the military came, weapons drawn, and ordered me and my family out of the house immediately, or they would begin shooting. We were chased from our home so that the soldiers could use it as a military post. Angry and humiliated, and without income or shelter, I fled with my family into the bush. Prior to my life in Suriname, I was always a father-on-the-run, never settling down long enough to be there for and enjoy the company of my children in both Guyana and the United States. For me, it was always the bigger picture--the "organization," the "ideology," and the "revolution"--which took precedence over everything else. But now in the heart of Suriname, I was more concerned with saving my children than I was with saving the world. Perhaps it was my advancing age and the veiled cynicism I had acquired for leaders and governments-with their lofty promises and repression--that compelled me to narrow the perimeters of my revolution to that of my family. As the Surinamese economy continued to worsen, cholera and tuberculosis epidemics swept through the country. The school system, without money for books or teachers, ground to a halt. By 1993 my family was living in a small "bush house" without electricity or running water, growing vegetables for market and selling herbal medicine and coffee. The soldiers would always shout "Volgende week!" ("Next week!") from their departing trucks filled with containers of water, but rarely did they deliver the water on schedule. I began to worry about the health and future of my children. I pondered ways of getting my children to the United States. But as a fugitive, I could not simply move with Nisha and the children out of the country. And I did not want to leave them behind: Would my freedom be worth the welfare of my children? The situation in Suriname was becoming more and more desperate by the day. After convincing Nisha that my surrender would ensure a better life for our children, I decided to enter the U.S. Embassy in Paramaribo. I faltered at my initial attempts to walk through that door, recalling five years of caged existence, the constant state of racial tension, and the reasons why we had escaped. But I just had to get my children out of the country. On 24 November 1993, I had garnered enough courage to go inside. I told Marjorie Ames, vice consul at the embassy, who I was and that I would willingly surrender to U.S. authorities and return to California if my Surinamese wife and our children were allowed to immigrate to the United States. After confirming with the Justice Department that I was indeed the "Larry Joseph Stiner" who had escaped from San Quentin State Prison, Ames assured me that my family would be provided for and allowed to travel to the United States. Further meetings between us took place to resolve details concerning the legal status and financial situation of my children. I signed a surrender agreement and Ames continued to promise that my children were legal U.S. citizens and would be permitted to follow me to the United States (any children of U.S. citizens born overseas are automatically U.S. citizens themselves). She also arranged for Nisha and me to be married so that Nisha could apply for a visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen. Ames cabled to Washington concerning my state of mind: "Stiner's main concern is what becomes of his family--A-1 priority!" The office of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-California) also became involved. My sister Tamu eventually became a congressional liaison for the U.S. Postal Service. She enlisted the aid of Pelosi's Director of Casework, Pat Dobson, who in turn contacted Marjorie Ames. According to Ames, the embassy would provide U.S. passports, Surinamese birth certificates, and consular reports of foreign births for my children. Dobson also received assurances from the Department of Health and Human Services that the U.S. government would pay the cost of flying my family from Paramaribo to the United States. For her part, Tamu signed an "Affidavit of Support," affirming that she and her husband would care for my children while I was in prison. These events convinced me that my family would indeed be allowed to follow me to the U.S. On 4 February 1994 in Paramaribo, I surrendered to the custody of Rinaldo Campana, a U.S. Justice Department official stationed in Caracas, Venezuela. Together we flew to Caracas and then to Miami, where I was turned over to domestic agents of the Justice Department for my return to California. Campana provided further assurances that my family would be cared for and allowed to emigrate. However, once I was back in the United States I was told that my family had been denied permission to enter the country because they lacked the resources to support themselves without government assistance. By then, I was back in custody, facing a trial for escape and the return to prison to resume my life sentence. RETURN FROM EXILE Upon my return to California, I was taken to Marin County Superior Court, where I still faced charges stemming from the 1974 escape from San Quentin. Not surprisingly, the jury took less than three hours to convict me. After the verdict was announced, I could see that the jurors were uncomfortable with coming to a verdict that challenged their conscience. However, they had no choice. Throughout the hearing the jurors heard convincing evidence supporting justifications for my having escaped from San Quentin. The farewell
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note we left for our parents was part of the trial evidence and could not be dismissed or entirely discredited by the district attorney. But regardless of my reason or justification, I had indeed escaped. Thus recognizing their dilemma after the guilty verdict, I rose from my seat and told them, "I'm sure you did the right thing." Probation Officer Robert Roush prepared a report for my sentencing hearing, in which he wrote, "A review of the extensive cable communications between the American Embassy in Paramaribo and the State Department in Washington indicates clearly that the primary motive of the defendant in returning to the U.S. and to custody, was the well being of his family. The content of the various cables from December 1993 to February 1994 makes it clear that the State Dept. understood Mr. Stiner's request that, as part of the surrender process, the State Dept. would agree to assist the defendant's family in relocating to the U.S." Roush further stated, "It has been clearly established that the defendant did have sufficient cause to fear for his own safety during incarceration at San Quentin." He recommended that I receive probation with a year in county jail concurrent with my earlier prison sentence--in effect, serve no additional time for the escape. Deputy District Attorney Barry Borden, stating that "the probation report is lacking in its analysis," urged the court to give me the maximum three additional years in prison. "Granting [Stiner] probation," he said, "would be rewarding him for taking the criminal justice system into his own hands by escaping and basically making a mockery out of the criminal justice system, as well as sending the wrong message to prisoners at San Quentin that would be basically if you escape and you don't get caught while you're out, that's okay; you'll just get a hand slapped and you can come back to prison if you're ever caught and finish out your prison term." Borden also ridiculed Roush's argument that I had escaped out of fear for my life. "The best evidence in this case clearly shows that the reason he escaped was not because he felt that his life was in danger, but rather because he just didn't want to serve a long prison sentence." Challenging the assertions of the district attorney, I addressed the court. "First, I want to say that although my escape in 1974 was about my own life, my surrender in 1994 is about the life of my family. It's not about me. It's about the concerns and love that I have for my family. I'm not expecting anything from anyone. As long as my family can benefit from whatever action I take, that's all that concerns me. Your honor, I could really do my time. I just can't do my family's time." I began reading a letter from my stepson Raoul describing the conditions under which they were living: the lack of water in the area, the days and nights left alone, the questions and promise, the lack of gas and food, and their inability to attend school. I struggled to maintain my composure as I read aloud the words that reflected the painful reality of my children's situation. I finished the letter with difficulty and took my seat, waiting for the judge's response. Finally, the judge spoke. "This is an unusual case," she began. "You don't see these very often where people come back after twenty-some-odd years to turn themselves in from an escape." She acknowledged, "I have really mixed feelings about the sentencing because I think in terms of you there's no question that you have rehabilitated yourself. You're no longer a danger to society. While it clearly is wrong what you did in escaping, the fact that you committed no new crimes for the last twenty years, that you led a law-abiding life, that you took care of your family the best you could, is certainly a positive sign." Judge Taylor placed me on probation for five years and sentenced me to serve one year in the county jail concurrent with my sentence from Los Angeles, thus imposing no additional time for the escape. Her last words to me were, "Okay, Mr. Stiner, now it's up to San Quentin." Under California's sentencing scheme as it existed in 1969, I became eligible for parole after serving seven years. I am entitled to reconsideration of my parole status up to five years of each denial. My first parole eligibility hearing with the Board of Prison Terms (BPT) occurred on 26 March 1996. A psychiatric profile prepared for my hearing concluded, "There was no evidence of any potential for violence." Ironically, had there been no threat upon my life, and I had chosen not to escape, I probably would have been paroled soon after reaching eligibility. In the mid-1970s, before Rose Bird was appointed California's chief justice, and before Willie Horton frightened state officials everywhere into clamping down on releasing inmates, the parole board routinely released prisoners early in their sentences. Nearly half of all life prisoners who came up for parole consideration in the mid-1970s were granted release. Over the past two decades, however, the percentage of those granted parole has declined dramatically. During the years of my exile, what was once the California Adult Authority has undergone a draconian transformation from "rehabilitation" of prisoners to years of warehousing them in the name of "punishment." The Board of Prison Terms (BPT), responsible for recommending inmates for parole, consists of an arbitrary panel of political appointees, completely beholden to governors who are intimidated by the powerful California prison guards union. Although a few more releases have been granted under Arnold Schwarzenegger, the current governor, the board still maintains a virtual "no-parole" policy. The punitive political climate that has swept across this country has spawned a massive prison-industrial complex unparalleled in this nation's history. In 1974, the year I had escaped, the total prison population of California was less than 25,000. By 1994, the year of my surrender, that number had skyrocketed to more than 100,000. Speaking for the prosecution at my first parole hearing was Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Mark Vezzani. Vezzani described my conduct as being "exactly about hate. This man is the biggest racist I have ever been around. All the hate groups, all those terrorist organizations, the Black Panthers and the [US], then and today, want only one thing and that is to foment hate and disruption. He now has gotten himself seven children. He wants to bring back a wife and seven children to the very country he did everything he knew how to do to tear down and destroy, and he wants it to give him shelter and funds and money and insurance and take care of his family. It's a great example of hypocrisy. I don't believe this Board should
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find this man suitable now, or at any other time in the future." The BPT agreed with the district attorney and found me "unsuitable" for parole. According to its decision, I "would pose an unreasonable risk of danger to society if released at this time." Six subsequent hearings resulted in the same "terrorist" accusations and reason for denying me my freedom. After spending my first year in solitary confinement (six months in the Adjustment Center), I was finally returned to San Quentin's mainline population. The prison is no longer the hotbed of militancy and violence it once was in the early 1970s. There are other prisons in the enormous California prison system that house the most violent offenders. Hugo Pinell (Yogi) and Ruchell Magee (Cinque) are no longer the young vibrant prison warriors they once were. And neither am I. The revolutionary spirit of George Jackson has been exorcised from the walls of San Quentin. It is almost certain, however, that unjust laws and the rapid rate of incarceration in California will evoke his spirit again. Now looked up to by the younger generation as an "OG," I learn as much from them as they seek to learn from me. I see daily the lost souls, the holes in the spirits that carry most of them, and their yearnings for the broken fathers who have abandoned them. Perhaps mirrors of what will become of my own children. As far as the fate of my children is concerned, I began contacting various religious organizations and relief agencies, requesting aid for them as soon as I was on U.S. soil. For a time, the Salvation Army helped with clothing and arranged to get some of my children into school. However, that source soon dried up. Friends and family in the United States, including Maulana Karenga and his US Organization, have been consistent with financial support for my children. Unfortunately, Nisha has been unable to maintain control of the family--or herself. After I had surrendered, and the plans for her and the children to come to the United States retracted, she began using cocaine and exhibiting bizarre behavior. She has not lived with the children for many years now and sees them rarely. Nisha had tragically found her own way of surrendering. Fortunately, my children were rescued by a local relief worker who found them living alone and without food and running water. Their mother was declared mentally unstable to care for them, and they were subsequently separated and shuffled off to overcrowded foster homes. No longer could they even draw support and comfort from each other's presence. For an entire decade the U.S. government officials with whom I had negotiated my surrender showed no interest in following through with their agreement, or in addressing my children's plight. Then, in August 2004, I was surprised to learn that after all those years, there were rumors that perhaps plane tickets were forthcoming after all. How and why this came about, half a childhood later, I do not know, but on 17 January 2005, my six children arrived in the United States. Raoul, now with a wife and small baby girl of his own, remained in Suriname, as did Nisha. Currently, my children are all living with my eldest son Larry Jr. and his lovely wife Diane, who have decided to take on the huge responsibility of caring for them until my release. (16) "I Write for My Children" I write for my children in words only hearts can fathom. I write for my children pen-drenched in love storms and magical poems; each alphabet a teardrop, every page a river. I write for my children; no longer can I see their glowa soft and tender sadness illuminates their souls. I write for my children to invoke their spirits; faint breaths upon my face as sprinkles of giggles tickle my lobe. I write for my children to rescue my drowning faith in a pool of regrets. I write for my children in a language that dances on lyrical islands and miracle streams. I write for my children because writing is a blanket I weave around their hearts. I write for my children ... Watani Stiner B19861 San Quentin, CA 94974 NOTES
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THE Us-PANTHER CONFLICT, EXILE AND THE BLACK DIASPORA: THE PLIGH LARRY WATANI STINER - National African American Congress Forum

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(1) Curtis J. Austin, Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther Party (Fayetteville, 2006), 224-40; Jeffrey Ogbonna Green Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore, MD, 2004), 115. (2) Scot Brown, Fighting for US: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism (New York, 2003), 107-30. (3) Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (Boston, MA, 1988), 42-43; Stokely Carmichael and Michael Thelwell, Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) (New York, 2003), 665. In separate published statements made by two persons, Louis Tack wood and a man calling himself "Othello," both claimed to have worked for the FBI or local police and funneled weapons to and worked with infiltrators in US for the purpose of destabilizing the Black Panther Party. Othello's account found in an interview in Penthouse magazine, is cited in Huey Newton's dissertation, "War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America," University of California, Santa Cruz, 1980, 104-10; Tack wood's story can be found in a book entitled The Glass House Tapes (New York, 1973). His account added fuel to scholarly attempts at advancing similar allegations against US and Karenga--see Rod Bush, We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century (New York, 1999), 217. Prior to the publication of The Glass House Tapes, Tack wood's credibility was undermined by constant changes in his story, and evasive and poor performance on a lie detector test; see Los Angeles Times, 17 October 1971, pp. 1, B1, B4 for details. While taking the test he specifically refused to answer questions relating to his claim that he supplied Karenga with guns and money to disrupt the Black Panther Party. (4) Kenneth O'Reilly, Racial Matters: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972 (New York, 1989), 261-324; United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cointelpro: The Counter-Intelligence Program of the FBI (Wilmington, DE, 1978), microform. (5) Austin, Up Against the Wall, 113-58; Brown, Fighting for US, 95-99. (6) Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America, 1st ed. (New York, 2006), 251-52; Winston Grady-Willis, "The Black Panther Party: State Repression and Political Prisoners," in Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ed. Charles Jones (Baltimore, MD, 1998), 377-78. (7) For an analysis of Bum ham's foreign and domestic policies, see Festus Brotherson, Jr., "The Foreign Policy of Guyana, 1970-1985: Forbes Burn ham's Search for Legitimacy," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 31, no. 3 (1989): 9-33. (8) Ruth Reitan, The Rise and Decline of an Alliance: Cuba and African American Leaders in the 1960s (East Lansing, MI, 1999). (9) "20 Years Later, It's Still Prison," San Francisco Chronicle, 4 August 1994. (10) Perry Mars and Alma H. Young, Caribbean Labor and Politics: Legacies of Cheddi Jagan and Michael Manley (Detroit, MI, 2004), 152; Walter Rodney, Walter Rodney Speaks: The Making of an African Intellectual (Trenton, NJ, 1990), 74-79. (11) Rebecca Moore and Fielding McGehee III, eds., New Religious Movements, Mass Suicide, and People's Temple: Scholarly Perspectives on a Tragedy (Lewiston, NY, 1989). (12) James Petras, "A Death in Guyana Has Meaning for Third World," Latin American Perspectives 8, no. 1 (1981): 47. (13) Pierre-Michel Fontaine, "Walter Rodney: Revolutionary and Scholar in the Guyanese Political Cauldron," in Walter Rodney, Revolutionary and Scholar: A Tribute, ed. Edward A. Alpers and PierreMichel Fontaine (Los Angeles, CA, 1982), 24-33. (14) Clive Thomas, "Walter Rodney and the Caribbean Revolution," in ibid., 122-31. (15) Anthony De Sales Affigne, "Radical Politics in the Postcolonial Americas," in Southern Political Science Association Annual Meeting Proceedings (Norfolk, VA, 1997), 7-11. (16) Jordan E. Rosenfeld, "Asylum Granted: Prisoner's Family Comes to America" North Bay Bohemian. 20-26 April 2005; Matthew Fleischer, "Children of the Revolutionary," Los Angeles Weekly, 22 August 2007. Larry Watani Stiner and Scot Brown* *Scot Brown is Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. COPYRIGHT 2007 Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning Share

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THE Us-PANTHER CONFLICT, EXILE AND THE BLACK DIASPORA: THE PLIGH LARRY WATANI STINER - National African American Congress Forum

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Comment by Baba Jahi on January 19, 2009 at 7:19pm Asante Sana for sharing this story! I always wonder what happen to Watani and Ali. Brother we all have been through a lot. Some more then others. What can I say. We don't have that many people who we can even talk to about the things that those of us went through from being in the movement. When I share stories with family members at times some look at me like thats what we get for being a revolutionary. I'm just glad that I'm able to share with my house movement stories. She listens and tries her best to understand. My house and I got together in 1986. So the things I went through from 1969 to 1980 she was not in my life. But today she helps me from not being bitter at people who don't understand. Again Asante Sana for sharing this information. My grandson is named after Watani. My grandson's name is Isaiah Watani Martin. Tutaonana Baba Jahi

Comment by Maat en Sebek on January 19, 2009 at 8:44pm

Avatar Ancestor Amos Wilson says it best, in Blueprint For Black Power" "Afrikan life into the coming millenia is imperiled by White and Asian power. True power must nest in the ownership of the real estate wherever Afrikan people dwell. Economic destiny determines biological destiny. Blueprint for Black Power details a master plan for the power revolution necessary for Black survival in the 21st century. White treatment of Afrikan Americans despite a myriad of theories explaining White behavior, ultimately rests on the fact that they can. They posses the power to do so. Such a power differential must be neutralized if Blacks are to prosper in the 21st century." Stay Strong BrothaMAN, the betrayal we face and have faced, is because Our determination for Freedom is Just & Right. Even after all the suffering by your person, your family members... When i see Malcolm's youngest daughter at events in NYC, it may ring hollow 4 her too! But OUR Ancestors' say! Our Efforts For Freedom IS Right & Just! Add a Comment

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THE Us-PANTHER CONFLICT, EXILE AND THE BLACK DIASPORA: THE PLIGH LARRY WATANI STINER - National African American Congress Forum

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