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Brown Beret, Prison Chapter 10 Point ProgramThe following document was published in the fall of 2012 and circulated by theMaoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons. Onkwehn:we Rising was recentlycontacted by the Brown Berets Prison Chapter via MIM-Prisons, and we send warmrevolutionary greetings back to our sisters and brothers of the nation of Aztlnstruggling within the imperialist iron houses. Onkwehn:we Tiahui!

For the past few decades California has been increasingly using control units inthe form of security housing units (SHUs) as a method of control. Thesedeprivation chambers are a major part of the states war on the Chicano nation.Where prisons are used to enforce a slow genocide on La Raza, to disrupt thefamily unit and implement an internment camp by legal means, within prisonsalso lies the SHU which is equivalent to the chopping block where rebelliousslaves who resisted or escaped would get limbs amputated as 1) punishment forresisting the oppressor nation, 2) preventing the slave from making futureattempts, and 3) to inflict a psychological blow terrorizing the largerpopulation to what will happen to them should they choose the same path ofresistance. So too are the SHUs used in this manner on revolutionary orrebellious prisoner who resist the state, for this opposition to the state we aremet with SHU which restricts our ability to resist and punishes us for ourrefusal to obey our oppressor thus instilling a grave warning to the prisonmasses of what will happen to them should they take the path of resistance. This

oppression has gone on for decades and has grown to horrific proportions inrecent years. Here in Pelican Bay SHU over a thousand are tortured with solitaryconfinement alone. The living conditions here have gone past punishment to themost vile cruelty depriving us of the most basic human rights, it is a placewhere sunlight is denied and health care is often used to extort incriminatinginformation from those being tortured in this house of horrors. It is a placewhere prisoners have faced the most horrendous abuses like being boiled in tubsof scalding water to being stripped down in underwear and locked in an iron cageoutside in the freezing raining winter morning. These stories would beunbelievable had they not been documented in court transcripts for all to see.

Chicanos are overwhelmingly the majority of those sent to SHU, it is theidentification of this war on Aztln, this silent offensive that you wont readabout in the bourgeois press or see on the corporate news outlets but which wesee, live and have analyzed for all to understand.

These developments led to the formation of the Chicano Prisoners RevolutionaryCommittee (CPRC) in late 2011 here in Pelican Bay SHU. The CPRC was createdinitially for the efforts taking place surrounding the hunger strikes that sweptU.$. prisons in 2011. It was within this effort to analyze and lend arevolutionary perspective to the developments surrounding human rights in prisonsthat CPRC gave birth to the Brown Berets prison chapter (BB-PC) on June 1,2012.

The BB-PC was inspired by the original Brown Berets that arose in the 1960s andled the Chicano movement in harnessing the people in the barrios with their manyindependent institutions from free health clinics, child care, free foodprograms, schools, newspapers etc. We draw from this legacy of serving the peopleand dig deeper in the theoretical realm.

We do not answer to any other chapter nor does any other existing chapter answerto us, we are an autonomous chapter which due to the extreme repression inAmerikkkas history operates underground within U.$. prisons. Currently we arethe first and only prison chapter in Amerika but we expect many more chapters todevelop in many other prisons and states as Chican@s develop politically. We donot publish the names of the BB-PC cadre; our chapter resides in Pelican BayState Prison.

The BB-PC is the Chicano cadre in U.$. prisons that works to transform thesepintas and our nation from our vantage point. We are taking the concepts ofcommunity organizing and applying them to the pinta, thus these concreteconditions we experience are very different than they are for a chapter out insociety and although our efforts are mostly prison based and revolve aroundcontradictions prisoners face on a daily basis our main thrust of course lies inthe Aztln liberation movement. Our ten point program guides us in that direction

and allows us to remain in active service of Chicano independence.

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Brown Beret, Prison Chapter 10 Point ProgramWe welcome all imprisoned Latinos to partake in the Chicano struggle as aliberated Aztln will be a place where all Latinos are welcome to be free fromoppression.

The following is the BB-PC Ten Point Program:

1. We are Maoists We believe as Mao taught that class struggle continues evenunder socialism, as a new bourgeoisie develops as happened in the USSR after thedeath of Stalin in 1953 and after Maos death in 1976. Mao advanced communism thefurthest thus far in world history and it will be through a Maoist program thatwe liberate Aztln.

2. We are an autonomous chapter We are a self governing chapter that practicesdemocratic centralism. We understand that because of state repression we are moreefficient as an autonomous chapter and that as new chapters arise in otherprisons across Amerika that they too will be autonomous in each individualprison.

3. We want to build public opinion in prisons At this stage the only struggle inAmerika is in the realm of ideas, we seek to politicize the imprisoned Chicanonation through educating our gente on all aspects of la lucha.

4. We want Raza unity As the largest Raza population in Amerikan prisons theChicano nation understands its responsibility to maintain Pan-Latino unity and toeducate all Raza on the current repression we face. In the prisons within Aztln,Raza endure institutional oppression where Raza are overwhelmingly held in SHUsand control units far more than any other of the oppressed. This offensive ismeant to neutralize us physically but particularly mentally. We will stand withimprisoned Latinos and resist the oppressor nation as we have done for 500 yearsand support the Boricua in their march toward independence free fromneocolonialism.

5. We stand in solidarity with all oppressed and Third World prisoners. Todaysprisons are meant to dehumanize the people and break our will to resist. Theinternal semi-colonies that are captured and held in these concentration campsface much of the same repression from the state, we understand that to better our

living conditions as prisoners it will depend on a united front of oppressedprisoners for legal battles and other effort to obtain human rights in prisonsand we will cultivate this collaboration.

6. We are revolutionary nationalists We understand that true internationalism isonly possible when each nation is fully liberated. We identify oppression inAmerika revolving around nation, class and gender which enables imperialism touphold power and we combat these forms of oppression in our long march tonational liberation.

7. Close the control units The SHUs and similar models are designed to unleashpopulation regroupment on the imprisoned Chicano nation. It is well known thatthe most revolutionary elements of the Chicano prison population are plucked fromgeneral population prisons and sent to the SHU or other control units in aneffort to isolate the revolutionary vanguard from the prison masses, this

isolation is then used to torture Chicanos en masse through solitary confinementand other psychological methods for years and decades.

We understand that this is done primarily to prevent the captive Chicanorevolutionaries from mobilizing our mass prison base. We see the control units inAmerika as modern day concentration camps as we are sent to those camps not forphysical acts but for thought crimes, beliefs or supposed beliefs that oppose thestate. We work to overturn the use of control units in every prison in Amerika.

8. Stop prisoner abuse. We are against oppression in all its forms withinprisons. This includes prisoners preying on prisoners, abuse from the hands ofguards, patriarchy or any abuse physically or psychologically. In Amerika prisonsare tools of imperialism used to inflict terror on the internal semi-colonies outin society and stifle any resistance to their war on poor people, havingexperienced and identified the full onslaught of this offensive we take it head

on to combat all forms of abuse from the state or otherwise and this includescombatting the state propaganda and tactics of pitting prisoner against prisoner

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Brown Beret, Prison Chapter 10 Point Programby political education so that prisoners understand who the oppressor is.

9. Free all political prisoners. We not only see political prisoners as those whowere politically conscious out in society and came to prison for acts of themovement, we go past that in our analysis and also see SHU prisoners asoverwhelmingly political prisoners who are systematically tortured for their

ideas or alleged thoughts. We also see most prisoners in U.$. prisons aspolitical prisoners because living in imperialist amerika many of the Crimesand criminal injustice system that we face is nothing more than nationaloppression that is exercised in order to uphold the capitalist relations ofproduction and we work toward freeing the people.

10. We want a liberated socialist Aztln. Our aim is communism but we understandit will take many years for this to become reality. At this stage we are workingfor Aztln independence which will only occur after the defeat of imperialism. Wework toward a socialist Aztln where the peoples needs are met; things likeland, bread, education, health care and many more needs will be met and peoplespower will be exercised in order to transform not just society but prisons aswell, to a more vibrant and just environment where all will have an opportunityto grasp revolution and promote production. We will transform these prisonsideologically in order to prepare the ground for these developments as we serve

the people.

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