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Page 2 of 2 AMY GOODMAN: You say “disparate treatment.” Can you give us examples of people you're talking about?  MAX RAMEAU: Certainly. Obviously in the war on drugs there’s a lot more tax on the Black community, where less drugs are used than in the White community, particular about the issue of terrorism, in addition to Luis Posada, who is a Cuban who is widely considered to be responsible for the 1976 bombing of an airplane, with killing 73 people. He is in jail now but was in Miami walking around freely for many months before he was in jail. And he’s in jail on immigration charges, not on bombing charges. Orlando Bosch was also a Cuban who held a press conference in April of 2006, essentially confessed on television to his role in that same bombing, killing 73 people, blowing up an airplane. He said that he didn't want to get himself in trouble by saying that he did it, but he essentially confessed to doing it. He lives in Miami right now in a nice big house, and he’s not being bothered by anyone. On the day of the raids, that same Thursday, the Miami Herald, which is the local paper, put out a front-page article, where a former board member of the Cuban American National Foundation by the name of Jose Antonio Llama came out on the front page and said that the Cuban American National Foundation, which is recognized by the government as a not-for-profit organization, had a subcommittee from their board who was responsible and did buy weapons, bought boats, bought helicopters, for the purpose of attacking a sovereign country, for attacking Cuba. So these guys were actually terrorists, real live terrorists, and they all live right now free in Miami and not getting arrested. I’m trying to imagine what would happen if a group of Black people got together and came out on TV and said, “We were responsible for blowing up an airplane.” What would happen to them? So it looks like there's really a big difference in the treatment there of some amateur wannabes terrorists here, allegedly, who are now going to get ready to get run over by this train that is Homeland Security, and there's some real live terrorists who are sitting, living, and being unmolested by the police as we speak. This is really unfair treatment. AMY GOODMAN: Max Rameau, can you talk about the Haitian community in Liberty City and the effect that this has had, Max? MAX RAMEAU: Yes. Well, I was born in Haiti myself. The Haitian community has been very upset by this. We're really concerned that this is going be used as a justification for the continued discriminatory practices against Haitians. Already, Haitians have a difficult time. Haitians refugees have a difficult time getting into the United States. We're concerned that now the government is going to say, “We told you all along that we shouldn't have Haitians in here, and this is proof of it. We have a bunch of Haitian terrorists running around here.” So we're very concerned that this is going to be used as a justification for discriminatory practices against the Haitian community, both those Haitians trying to come in and it’s going to represent a pretext for cracking down on the Haitian community and the Black community in general, but the Haitian community in particular, who live here in South Florida or perhaps other parts of the country. So we really have an interest in making sure that these guys get their due process and that we challenge the official government version of events, because there is a history of lying, of planting evidence, of attacks and disparate treatment on behalf of the government against the Black community. AMY GOODMAN: What about the evidence or lack of evidence that was found? MAX RAMEAU: Well, a lot of show has been made about the militaristic boots that they had and the gear and the outfits. Well, it turns out these guys didn't have enough money or enough organization to get these things for themselves. The FBI bought them the boots that we’ve heard so much about, bought them the military outfits that we’ve heard so much about. If you look at the indictment, the biggest piece of evidence, it seems to me, that they have is that the group may have taken pictures of a bunch of targets in South Florida. But the guys couldn't afford their own cameras, so the federal government bought them the cameras with which they took the pictures. They couldn't get downtown and all the other places by themselves. The federal government rented them the cars that they needed to get downtown in order to take the pictures. So it looks like they really didn't have too much capacity. In addition, right now the running joke in Liberty City is, you know, in the indictments -- if you read the indictments, the men provided the FBI informant with a list of things they needed in order to blow up these buildings, but in the list they didn't include any explosives or any materials which could be used to make explosives. So now everyone in Liberty City is joking that the guys were going to kick down the FBI building with their new boots, because they didn't have any devices which could have been used to explode, so this really, really looks pretty thin. And in addition, we have concerned -- anyone who is an activist and been to community meetings knows that there’s a few people who come into a meeting and make these statements which are a little bit beyond what their capacity is. You know, you go in, you talk about a zoning issue, and some guy comes in and says, “Oh, we'll just take over the City Hall,” when they’re talking about a little small zoning issue, and you know they have no capacity do that. So we're concerned that these guys had no capacity to do anything that they seemed to be talking about, that they were led by the hand by this FBI agent. I been living in Liberty City. I’m not sure, you know, just judging by Liberty City, in general -- not just Liberty City, but most people there -- I’m not sure these guys knew where the Sears Tower was, much less that it would represent a significant target. So I really wonder who suggested the Sears Tower in the first place, who suggested taking the pictures. It’s just not all that clear that these guys could have come up with these plots and have carried them out, and it really raises questions again about the other real live terrorists who are living here who are not being arrested. AMY GOODMAN: Max, finally, the issue of when it was first announced, the government said that these were Muslim men. CAIR has been quite vocal over the weekend, the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations saying that they are not from their community. MAX RAMEAU: Well, first of all, I don't see that as being a major issue, whether they're Muslim or not. I still think that they have a right to a fair trial and they have a right to the presumption of innocence and they have a right not to be arrested for thinking things. But with that said, it really raises a lot more questions, that the federal government will go out and make these statements that, you know, apparently leaking information that these were a bunch of Muslim men, when apparently they were not Muslim men. It raises several questions. For example, did the government even know if they were Muslim or not? And if they didn't know that these guys were not Muslim, then what else did they not know that they’re including in here. And it raises questions that they would come out and outright lie. We’ve been very concerned about the media coverage also, which has emphasized very, very minute or seemingly insignificant information, like these guys like to keep to themselves. These guys wore turbans. Well, what does -- you know, I don't understand what the big deal is with some of that, except to the extent that that plays into xenophobic fears and fears about the war on terrorism as framed by the government. AMY GOODMAN: This story came at just the same time as a huge embarrassment to the government, and that is the story in the New York Times about the monitoring of financial records internationally. MAX RAMEAU: Yeah. I really think this could be a case of weapons of mass distraction, where you have a big embarrassing issue coming out, and right now people are not talking about that, and they're talking about this. And this is not even seemingly all that significant of an arrest. So it really raises questions, when they didn't have any weapons at the place. It seems to me that if the feds would have even thought this out a little bit, they would have at least planted weapons there, but they didn't even go through the trouble of doing that. So it seems that this was thrown out there, thrust out there as a way of distracting people or drawing attention away from another really embarrassing situation, which means that these guys are just props, and I am really offended by that, because I know then that if these guys really are just props, that means that there are -- the government is spending all kinds of time and resources on people who don't represent any danger whatsoever to the general society, and there’s other people who represent a significant danger to people in the society who are not being tracked, who are not being followed, who are not being arrested. So this is a real, real concern, not only because these guys have rights, but because this is a misappropriation of government money -- my money and everyone else's money, as well. AMY GOODMAN: Max Rameau, I want to thank you for being with us with Miami CopWatch, project of the Center for Pan-African Development in Miami; and David Markus, head of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
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