McKINNEY Takes "COINTELPRO" to UN Human Rights Commissioner
http://www.truthout.com/0563.McKinney.CON.UN.htm
McKinney Raises US Governments "COINTELPRO" program with UN Human Rights
Commissioner
DURBIN, SOUTH AFRICA -- 09.02.01 | Today, in a meeting with United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
presented
Robinson with two documents as evidence of the US governments violations of
both US and
international law and, in particular, specific violation of the
International Convention on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The first document given to Robinson
was confidential
memorandum 46, written by National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski on
March 17, 1978
and it details the federal government's plan to destroy functioning black
leadership in the United
States. This document provides a critical insight into the federal
government's concern at the
apparent growing influence of the African American political movement. The
second document is
a report entitled "Human Rights in the United States [The Unfinished Story-
Current Political
Prisoners- Victims of COINTELPRO]" and it was compiled by the Human Rights
Research Fund,
headed by Kathleen Cleaver. This document provides an overview of the
counterintelligence
program which, from the 1950s to the 1980s, was run in the United States
against political activists
and targeted organizations. The excesses of the counterintelligence program
were first exposed in
1975 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, known as the Church
Committee.
"From as early as the 1950's and right up until the 1980's the US
government directed the
machinery of state against the African American political movement and, in
so doing, effectively
put an end to the civil rights movement inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King.
COINTELPRO was in
clear violation of the US Constitution and a wide range of US laws, as well
as, in clear breach of
internationally accepted standards for human rights and fundamental
freedoms. That our government
would turn its full resources against its own law abiding citizens is
unforgivable and ranks us among those rogue nations of the world who have
chosen to kill hope and sow misery in its place," stated McKinney.
Also see: http://www.house.gov/mckinney/news/index.htm
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