Bryan G. Pfeifer, a member of the Detroit Committee to Stop FBI/Grand Jury Repression, interviewed Tom Burke of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) and spokesperson for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, in Grand Rapids, Michigan January 28. Burke and his spouse are two of the 23 international solidarity activists issued subpoenas by the FBI since September 2010. For more information: www.stopfbi.net.

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Bryan G Pfeifer: What happened on September 24, 2010?

Tom Burke: The Federal Bureau of Investigation under the directions of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald out of Chicago raided two homes in Chicago and five homes in Minneapolis. They had as many as 20 agents in one house in Chicago. And they had guns drawn when they entered one of the homes in Minneapolis with warrants to search the homes and to take away computers, cell phones, any materials that they wanted really. They took passports, personal photos and even children’s artwork. The basis of this was they said they were investigating material support for the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia and the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP} which are two large and popular groups in their own countries that are waging a struggle for independence from the U.S. and to end the occupation of the Israelis.

BGP: There has and continues to be resistance against the FBI and other agencies of the U.S. government for this most recent attack on international solidarity activists and other progressive individuals including union staffers and members. Would you expand?

TB: Originally in September they issued 14 subpoenas to activists including myself and my wife here in Michigan. We all had dates to appear in front of the Grand Jury in Chicago and which we all declined to do. We all signed individual letters to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago saying we would not be appearing. And we won’t appear in front of the Grand Jury because it’s like a secret court where the U.S. Attorney, who is your prosecutor, picks all the jurors, there’s no judge in the proceedings and we’re not allowed to have a lawyer in the courtroom and so we think it’s a bad idea to go into such a secretive setting. It’s really a court of inquisition and so we declined to do so.

And, following our refusal, the government let the subpoenas lapse but then reactivated three subpoenas who are mainly Palestine solidarity activists, three women in Minnesota. And then, in the month of December, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office issued nine more subpoenas for Arab Americans and Palestine activists in and around Chicago. So they were due to appear on January 25 and I’m happy to say all nine of those declined to appear at that time.

There were more than 50 protests on January 25 throughout the U.S. and a handful of places like Dublin, Ireland; Kiev, Ukraine; Canada; and Australia too. Hundreds of groups participated and thousands of people came out to support the people who are anti-war and international solidarity activists who are being targeted by this government repression.

BGP: There was a press conference on January 12 by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression that revealed government infiltration into progressive and revolutionary organizations.

TB: A U.S. government agent-we don’t know which agency-gave her name as Karen Sullivan. She apparently got involved in the anti-war committee in Minneapolis prior to the Republican National Convention protests in August 2008 which we were largely responsible for organizing. Many of the original 14 activists subpoenaed were very involved in these protests; not all of them but most of them. Some of the original 14 are labor activists, some are Colombia solidarity activists, some are anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists. We all helped to put together a broad coalition across the U.S., the major anti-war groups came together and we had about 30,000 people protesting outside the Republican National Convention. And that’s the time when the government started to spy on the group and this woman named Karen Sullivan, even after the protests were over, continued in the Anti-War Committee. What she is is a paid professional liar; that’s what she does. We think the court cases are eventually going to be based on her lies and her distortions of reality and the truth.

We don’t think who is paid and trained by the government to lie can really make an effective court case but that seems to be what Fitzgerald’s office is out to do which is to attempt to criminalize our activism and criminalize our politics. And to intimidate people who have a different ideology or different views. And particularly a view that says the U.S. empire is doing bad things to people around the world and the U.S. empire is in fact bad for poor and working people in the U.S. too. They are trying to criminalize the fact that that’s our belief. And this is what we express in our websites, in FightBack newspaper, in our anti-war activism and in our organizing and protests.

So it’s really the case that the thought police raided homes and we’re going to be put on trial for our ideas because there is no material aid for terrorism. We understand that they are claiming that their investigation is to look at material aid to groups on their list but we say there isn’t any evidence because we haven’t done anything like that. And they had more than two years to find that evidence but it doesn’t exist.

BGP: What has this done to the personal lives of those who’ve been attacked and how are you dealing with the government repression?

TB: Well, we understand that the government is going to try to disrupt and repress the anti-war movement as well as participate with companies that disrupt labor unions. That both have been oppressing Muslim and Arab groups, putting individuals in jail and setting them up in sting operations.

So we understand that the government is of the rich, by the rich and for the rich and that anyone who challenges that idea with a democratic movement against the U.S. empire is going to come into conflict with the government. But quite frankly we were shocked at the raids and it turned people’s lives upside down especially those whose homes were gone through and had their things taken away. It’s like being robbed; robbed of your dignity; robbed of your actual things. And so it really disrupted people initially.

At the same time because we understand that the government is repressive towards people who want social change in the U.S. and who really targets people that are revolutionary and is targeting from the White House and from the Justice Department; targeting people who believe in actual socialism we were and are prepared to fight back. Because what the White House is promoting is something called corporatism. And the Tea Party might call it socialism but they know that’s not true either. They know that it’s corporate control and corporate power that’s being reinforced by Wall Street and the White House and that socialism is driven by working people having more and more democratic control of society. And this is what we stand for: socialism; socialism from below. And so they are in the midst of this economic crisis and are trying to slow down our ability to organize in the movements against the economic crisis whether it’s low income people or union workers or any other forms it takes trying to prevent and slow down the economic crisis.

We responded even though emotionally we were shocked. Within three hours I myself had written a press release about the raids and I did that because we train and work to be responsive and make sure to be quick to put our story out there to the media. And the movement since then has been overwhelming. We as leaders are attempting to keep up with the movement at this time. We saw over 70 cities protest in the two and three weeks following the raids. And we have over 500 solidarity statements from big unions; from student networks such as Students for a Democratic Society and Students for Justice in Palestine; churches like the Presbyterian church have made statements; and many others from the religious sector including Jewish, Christian and Muslim denominations of all kinds have made statements supporting us.

Internationally we’re beginning to gather steam and are getting more contacts internationally to shine a light on U.S. repression at home. We think the repression at home is a result of the decline of the empire overseas; the American century is over and it’s not coming back. So they are beginning to treat people who want social change in the U.S. as an internal enemy. Maybe they’re not just beginning but they’re intensifying that and we’re returning to a period like we saw in the sixties with COINTELPRO. We think Patrick Fitzgerald is like the new McCarthy figure who wants to target activists for their beliefs and put them in jail.

BGP: You said the current repression against progressive and revolutionary activists was and is a continuation of the U.S. government’s historic behavior.

TB: Where we think this is heading is President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder are backing up Patrick Fitzgerald in this sort of witch hunt like the McCarthy days. And that they are probably going to target the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and claim that we’re supporters of terrorism when in fact we’ve had a public website for more than a decade, we publish a newspaper five times a year. A newspaper, I might add, we work really hard to fund and all of our resources and money go into the work we do right here at home. I believe in Minnesota at the press conference there was a revelation that there was some potluck dinners held that sent a couple hundred dollars of contributions to a women’s group in Palestine to help fund childcare centers and women’s healthcare projects. But other than those small donations we’ve only used our money to organize people in our own country.

And so we believe that there’s going to be people indicted, arrested and put on trial by Fitzgerald’s office in a political kangaroo trial. Fitzgerald is determined to put us international solidarity activists in prison for our beliefs, that’s what it comes down to. And they’re going to try and use a paid, highly paid police agent to do that; that is what the whole case will hinge on is he said she said.

BGP: Many of those targeted by the U.S. government are Palestinian solidarity activists. Why do you think they are being targeted?

TB: The original infiltration began during the Republican National Convention and we were able to unite all the groups in the anti-war movement and all the different kind of trends that wanted to protest against the Republicans. We think that had an impact on the outcome of the elections. Our view was that McCain and the other warmongers of the Republicans should be defeated and we organized to help make that happen. The night McCain was nominated he had to share a split screen [on major media outlets] with our protest and that sent a clear message against war and against the occupation of Iraq and the continuation of the war in Afghanistan to the people of this country who were going out to vote.

And then you update it to now. I think we are the people who are effective at organizing solidarity with Palestine. Along with others, we are able to unite many groups and individuals to protest the Israeli occupation, to protest U.S. funding of Israel and its occupation of Palestine and war making in Palestine. And Israel is becoming more and more isolated in the world as young people around the world see that it’s an apartheid state the way South Africa used to be and there’s no turning back now. There’s all these young Jewish Americans who are anti-Zionist and they’re speaking out against it [Zionism] and it’s terrific. They’re standing against oppression and standing for the freedom of the Palestinian and other Arab peoples and they know we can live in a world where Jews and Muslims and Christians and Palestinians and people who are their neighbors can all live in peace together but it can’t be under the boot heel of the U.S. empire.

So we think they’ve targeted us because the empire is crumbling and they’ve found an ‘internal enemy’ and that ‘enemy’ believes in a world with friendly neighbors and good relations with other countries not war and occupation; it’s that fundamental. We want the U.S. to be good neighbors instead of bullies.

BGP: What’s happening next legally?

TB: The U.S. Attorney hasn’t been able to get any activists, despite their best efforts, to intimidate people and coerce people to testify in front of the grand jury. We expect that they may offer people immunity in an attempt to get them to testify and we think the activists are going to make an individual decision to stand strong, to not tattle-tell on their friends and we’re going to see whether or not the U.S. Attorney threatens to put people in jail for refusing to speak. We don’t know that they’re willing to do that but it’s certainly a tool they’ve used against other activists: imprisoning them when they refuse to speak. Then we think that will probably be followed by indictments and a long trial against not just members of FRSO, but any of the other activists could be targets for their solidarity with Palestine.

BGP: There are four regional conferences scheduled in February sponsored by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. Why are these conferences being held and what’s their focus?

TB: On Tuesday, February 1 we’re doing a national call-in day to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and to President Obama to demand that they stop the Grand Jury repression. We think grand juries should be done away with entirely. They’re undemocratic and they have an inquisition type of approach; it’s not something this country should be using. Second is on February 12 we’ll be having regional conferences for the west coast in Oakland at the Humanist Center, and in Chicago at Teamster’s City. The following weekend on February 19 in New York City and in Durham, North Carolina there’ll be an eastern and southern regional conference.

At those conferences we’re going to have panels where people who were raided or subpoenaed will speak about their experiences and explain why we think this is happening at this time. And then we’ll also ask for people who are facing similar cases or have experienced government repression in the past to do a panel so we can discuss that and learn lessons from that. And finally we’re going to put out an action plan to organize against the repression because this case is really big and it’s become like the cutting edge of the battle between peace and anti-war activists in this country and the government.

If the government is allowed to say that humanitarian donations to refugee camps is a crime, it’s going to affect not just hundreds of groups but thousands. Church groups that are sending warm clothing to a refugee camp in a war zone will have to figure out first whether the U.S. government is going to approve of that or whether they might go to prison for it. And people who do medical projects, people who do education projects, will all have to question their solidarity work. Whatever ideas they’re motivated by they are all threatened by this court case that’s coming up. We think the Obama administration should put a halt to it and say international solidarity is not a crime, free speech is important and the right to organize is a right that we cherish.

BGP: Many of those raided by the FBI and subpoenaed by the government are affiliated in some capacity with labor unions or labor-related organizations. What has been the response from the labor movement to the attempted government repression? And why do you feel it’s so important that the labor movement responds strongly against the attempted repression-especially during this time of economic crisis?

TB: Ten of the original fourteen activists subpoenaed either belonged to trade unions or are or were members of trade unions. Many of them are elected as stewards or officers of the local unions that they belong to.

In Minneapolis the statewide council of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME) passed a resolution in support of all of the activists. In Chicago the union where I used to be on the executive board, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73, sent out a resolution to hundreds of members who then had a discussion and voted to support us. The United Electrical Workers (UE) union had a national convention where they passed a resolution to support us and there’s the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). There’s a young Jewish woman who went to Palestine who brought a resolution to the Chicago Teachers Union and they passed a resolution supporting us.

The outpouring of support, especially those unions where we’re directly connected to, has been terrific which shows we think that people know who we are and they know the government is trying to criminalize our activity. And they are willing to come out strong and stand with us. The San Francisco Labor Council I have to mention too and their resolution was probably the strongest so far and it came within days of the raids. And honestly we didn’t know anyone in those unions or on that council but they saw what happened and sent us a solidarity statement and four other unions in the Bay Area sent individual statements too. So the outpouring from labor has been terrific.

We know that we were involved, both FRSO and the unions we’re a part of, were a part of supporting the Republic Windows & Doors struggle in Chicago right at the beginning of the big economic crisis when UE targeted Bank of America. It was shortly after that we tried to build a solidarity campaign with another union struggle in the Quads City near the border of Illinois and Iowa with some die cast workers. We know at that point the FBI was contacting the local police who told us that they were being told that the labor solidarity activists were dangerous people. And it was a bizarre response, it just made no sense that people who wanted to picket and protest the closing of another factory, shutting down a factory and moving it overseas, would be met with armed police claiming that the FBI was telling them that we were dangerous with picket signs and leaflets. So the labor movement really needs to take a look at this and think about supporting us.

We think that the government is more and more getting involved in the repression of the labor movement especially given that there’s such a deep economic crisis and unemployment is not going away anytime soon. And people are being threatened with being kicked off the rolls, not hundreds or thousands but millions of people threatened with a loss of income in this country and they are right to be angry about it. People not getting raises are right to be upset when the bankers who were bailed out by Bush and the new administration are bringing in huge profits again and giving out Christmas bonuses of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars while ten percent of America is jobless. People don’t need to be told that this is unjust they know it. When their houses are being foreclosed on they know it. When they’re being made homeless they know it. And we know it and we are able to organize. So in some ways this attack by the government has prevented us from focusing our efforts there. So we’re asking the labor movement to stand with us.

BGP: Any other comments?

TB: International solidarity is not a crime and we will continue to organize. We think we’ve done a good job so far and we appreciate all those people who have turned out and are helping us to build a leadership across the country. We’re not in this fight alone and we don’t plan to move forward alone and we thank our friends and comrades. I also want to encourage people to turn out for the protests on April 9 against the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq and to continue building the movement to stop U.S. aid to Israel.

**NOTE: May be republished in whole or in part provided full attribution is given to author.

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