WASHINGTON�The United States says it offers "democracy" to all that hunger and thirst for it. However, those working to free U.S. political prisoners in the U.S. say America has a history of imprisoning its own citizens because of their political ideology, and has never been "the home of the free" at all.

From Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, jailed for alleged fraud, to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, jailed for refusing to fight in WWII, to Ji Jaga Geronimo Pratt, released from federal prison just three years ago after serving 27 years for Black Panther Party activism in the 1960s, the U.S. government has always declared war against those whose political views challenge the system, activists say.

The issue of U.S. political prisoners surfaced again Aug. 29, with protests in Chicago, San Francisco and other places in support of jailed Puerto Rican nationalists. President Clinton offered clemency to 16 imprisoned members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation earlier in the month, but with restrictions. The prisoners rejected the conditions and allegations surfaced in Aug. 30 news reports that they had not renounced violence. The FALN members, the group�s Spanish acronym, were jailed for bombing U.S. military and political sites in the 1970s and 1980s.

The controversy and debate over the FALN cases struck a chord with those who say the U.S. still holds political prisoners from the 1960s Black Power Movement.

"The issue of whether or not political prisoners and prisoners of war exist inside the borders of the United States of America is one that the government of the United States of America has successfully been able to refute," according to the Jericho Movement, a campaign kicked off last year, and devoted to freeing all U.S. political prisoners.

"They have been able to deny the existence of political prisoners and prisoners of war because we have not taken it to them and forced them to address this issue. Over the last 30 years, the numbers of political prisoners of war languishing within the prisons of the United States of America has grown to enormous geometric proportions as the struggles for liberation and independence has intensified," Jericho Movement supporter adds.

According to the Jericho Movement, there are currently some 100 U.S. citizens or "political prisoners" and "prisoners of war" being detained. They were arrested for their activism in such groups as the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement and the Puerto Rican independence movement, defenders say.

"The first point I think we have to make is that because of the balance of power between the Black and white community, the predominate community (white community) has always been able to criminalize the political movements of dispossessed people," said Dr. Ronald Walters, professor of History, Culture and Political Science at the University of Maryland. "What that means is that to treat you like a criminal means that they don�t admit that there is such thing as a political prisoners. So even today the United States doesn�t admit that they have political prisoners.

"The movements that we know on the part of the Black community in the 1960s ... one of the favorite ways of breaking them was to infiltrate them and then to get something on them�the people in these groups. Then, of course, to see that they were tried, prosecuted and incarcerated. This goes all the way back to Marcus Garvey, so in the 20th century this has been a standard technique," Dr. Walters added.

Safiya Bukhari, director of the Jericho Movement, was arrested in 1975 because of her affiliation with the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. After her arrest, she was charged with possession of a machine gun and charged in connection with the death of a comrade. She was given 40 years, but had faced the electric chair and 900 years imprisonment. Ms. Bukhari agrees that the purpose of the federal government�s jailing of political activists is to break the causes for which the activists were fighting.

"At the time we were arrested, we took the P.O.W. position, we gave our name, rank and serial numbers and told them that the U.S. government didn�t have the right to try us because we were members of the Black Liberation Army and were citizens of the Republic of New Africa," she recalls.

"For the combatants, the motive for their arrest and imprisonment is to destroy them and put them back on a different military formation. For the leadership of the political movements, they have this impression that by cutting off the head, they could destroy the movements themselves because they assume that the movements are built around charismatic figures who sometimes have strong initiatives.

"These arrests are also designed to take these people out of the community and place them in the courts where they can�t continue the political work they were doing. So it changes the focus of the organization and the work it does. Then, with the bails and the legal fees, economically, it breaks the back of the movements and redetermines how the funds are allocated in terms of doing work in the community. So it�s a myriad of reasons that impact the destruction of the movements that exist, and the message they try to send to anyone who may want to join these movements is look what happened to those that did."

The Jericho Movement list of U.S. political prisoners includes such well-known names as Native American Leonard Peltier, former Black Panther Marshall Eddie Conway, Debbie Sims Africa, William Phillips Africa of MOVE and others.

Herman Ferguson was arrested in 1989 after spending 19 years in exile in Guyana, South America, after he was falsely accused of conspiracy to assassinate civil rights leaders in the 1960s. He said he was really targeted because of his work in the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a group that espoused armed struggle against U.S. colonization of Black people. RAM also called for a separate Black nation.

"There was no merit to the charges. They had planted an undercover agent in our group, and that undercover agent was the only one who testified against us," Mr. Ferguson said. "We came under the scrutiny of the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of the U.S. government which was designed to uncover organizations or individuals who were considered by the U.S. government as being a threat.

"But basically what it was, was that it was people like me who were out working in the community seeking to expose the hypocrisy of the U.S. government in terms of their denying us of our human rights and for negative things in the Black community, such as drugs and weapons which are being brought into our community. The whole exploitation of the Black community by white people with the encouragement of the U.S. government. When people stood up against this thing, the government put people in your group, or tried to discredit you, so that Black people would turn away from you."

According to Mr. Ferguson, "It�s still going. It�s always gone on, ever since the period of slavery. During slavery, they had people who were snitches and on the look out for the master who were also slaves. So, after slavery it was the duty of white people to make sure that we were kept back on the plantation, and anyone who came along calling for an uprising or any kind self-defense or organizing of us to separate and seek our own nation were seen as threat to the security of this country."

Dave Miller, an FBI spokesperson, told The Final Call that no official at the FBI wanted to discuss COINTELPRO for this story. COINTELPRO was a notorious FBI program which resulted in many political activists being imprisoned, some of whom remain incarcerated today. Mr. Miller, referred The Final Call to the FBI�s reading room. Some "52,000 pages of information is available to the public" on COINTELPRO, he said.

Mr. Miller denied COINTELPRO set out to destroy Black organizations and leaders. "That�s a point that you could argue, but we don�t think that," he said, adding that a U.S. senator in 1974 held a hearing on COINTELPRO. "Where Congress showed the FBI to be in error of the law, we abided by that and moved forward," he said.

President Clinton�s clemency offer included 20 conditions to be met before the prisoners could be released. Among the conditions: they would have to write letters asking for pardon, they will not be allowed to travel from the area they are sent to, they will not be allowed to associate with one another or with any convicted felons (i.e. other Puerto Rican political activists), and they must agree to arbitrary urine testing for drugs and check in with parole officers. Puerto Rican activists have denounced the clemency conditions.

"This offer coming at the time that it does is aimed at, number one, making these activists come out as criminals," said Alejandro Molina, spokesperson for the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in Chicago, who says Puerto Ricans have been fighting American and Western colonization in Puerto Rico since 1492 when Columbus arrived there.

"The whole projection here is that those who struggle for Puerto Rican independence are criminals and the Puerto Rican Independence Movement is a criminal movement. But that�s not true. In fact, the reverse is true. According to international law, colonialism is a crime against humanity and those who struggle against colonialism are in fact anti-colonial fighters. The charge of seditious conspiracy that the Puerto Rican political prisoners are charged with is the exact same legal charge that was put on Nelson Mandela and is the reason he went to prison," added Mr. Molina who said he was doubtful that the Puerto Rican nationalists would accept Clinton�s offer.

"It�s important that people in the Black and Latino community understand what�s happening in this case. It�s a question of work here that has to be done to educate these two groups," he added.

A Jericho Legal Defense Fund has been set up to raise money.

Washington Attorney Gilda Sherrod-Ali, who heads the fund, says it�s hard to get attorneys to represent political prisoners. "A lot of lawyers can�t afford to get into these very lengthy, very expensive drawn out legal battles on behalf of political prisoners. People have to understand it took 26 years of legal fighting on behalf of Geronimo Pratt. He had some very dedicated lawyers who worked on his case, one of whom had a lot of money named Johnnie Cochran. A lot of political prisoners and prisoners of war don�t have that."

On Oct. 16 of this year, the anniversary of the Million Man March, Jericho, is having a massive rally in New York to bring attention to the plight of America�s political prisoners. For more information write to the Jericho Movement, P.O. Box 650, New York, N.Y. 10009, or visit www.thejericho-movement.com.