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Terrorism

By VVAW National Office

In recent weeks we have been bombarded with media reports of the alleged activities of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). The SLA is purportedly responsible for the Nov. 6th slaying of Oakland School Superintendent, Dr. Marcus Foster, and the Feb. 4th kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, daughter of newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst. Whoever is responsible for these acts has set in motion a very unfortunate series of events that cannot but have adverse effects on progressive forces in the US and N. Calif. in particular.

Dr. Foster's murder was certainly no way in which to raise any issues around the Oakland school system. It only served to obscure any legitimate demands for change that were being made. Similarly, Ms. Hearst can in no way be held responsible for the political role played by her father in the US> Her kidnapping and the slaying of Dr. Foster were irresponsible acts of terrorism conducted by a few individuals. VVAW/WSO condemns them.

Additionally, these events have provided police officials and right-wing media sources a golden opportunity to attack movement organizations in the Bay Area. Oakland police and media personnel have already tried unsuccessfully to link VVAW/WSO with the Foster slaying, hoping to thereby discredit our work. An Oakland PD spokesman went so far as to say that they had "reason to believe that VVAW could be involved" in the slaying. Statements such as this are totally unfounded either in political or evidentiary fact. But, as we have learned from the Lawton/Gardner trials, police officials are more than willing to frame movement activists when the real suspects cannot be located.

VVAW/WSO firmly believes that it is the American people themselves that will make significant social change in this country. In the long struggle we are facing to end oppression here, it is only the American people who will be able to achieve their own liberation from it. We must never lose sight of the fact that the people are the real heroes in the process, not individuals isolated from them.