An Interview with Political Prisoner
Robert Seth Hayes
INTRODUCTION
Robert Seth Hayes is a father, grandfather and artist. He is
a black revolutionary freedom fighter who was captured and convicted in
New York City in 1973 under a host of charges attributed to his membership
in the Black Liberation Army, the BLA. Through his conviction he received
25 years to life. Robert Seth Hayes is one of the hundreds of political
prisoners in the US. He remains behind bars and as of July 2002, he
is now in his 30th year of incarceration. The following interview was
recorded on August 17, 2002.
Q- Prior to your imprisonment, you were a member
of the Black Panther Party. What were some of the things you did within
this group?
A- When I first involved myself in the Black
Panther Party in 1969 it was to support them economically though the sale
of the Black Panther Party newspaper and to participate in community activities
such as teach-ins or speak-ins, which we called at that time Political Education
Classes. As my involvement in the Black Panther Party grew, what I mean
by that is as I stayed on, I was reporting in, I was showing a consistency
of being concerned about activities in the community, and I was given other
responsibilities.
Those other responsibilities entailed
working for the Black Free Breakfast program. The Free Breakfast program
was a support network for the community that the Black Panther Party had
devised itself, due to the fact that lunch programs had been discontinued
in the schools in the Black, and what we say now are the Third World communities.
We felt that children needed a wholesome and healthy meal before attending
classes because it was our argument that if a child - who’s only had maybe
a cup of coffee and a slice of toast in the morning - while sitting in
the class around 10 or 11 o’clock is asked if Mary had three apples and
if she gave one to Johnny and two to Sam, how many would she have left,
that the child would not really be thinking about how many apples are left,
but how nice that apple would taste. And we did not want our children to
be stigmatized into appearing as though they were incapable of understanding
simple projects, and simple opportunities to solve problems.
We created a Black Panther Party Free
Breakfast program initially through contributions from the community, which
was the Panther Party’s objective: to unite the community and have the
united community act like a village where everyone shared the entire load
for the future, the generations, our children. We would feed them early
in the morning, we gave them a complete and wholesome and healthy breakfast,
intact and with the wisdom and understanding and the support that they were
wonderful and that it was their responsibility, and their duty, to become
educated citizens of their community and return with those skills to uplift
and develop their communities.
So, from newspaper selling to the
free breakfast program to acting in capacity in our free medical clinics,
where we again petitioned some of the health care providers in our communities
to surrender some free time, some pro bono time, to assist people. We would
go in, and because I had no medical background so to speak, in the hospitals,
in the clinics and in the storefront clinics that we had, my only contribution
was janitorial services. So I would go in and I would do a lot of cleaning
up and support them in that respect. To give back while they’re giving back.
And we would talk to people, and we
would help people to try to develop an understanding of what the process
was, what you were waiting for, how long it might take, and how not to
become frustrated. We did what we could to help develop a positive and
a correct approach to community development. And those skills were the
skills that were applicable during the time of the Black Panther Party.
Of course there were other aspects,
there were the constant harassments and you know the antagonisms and the
attacks by various task forces of the security elements of America.
We were under scrutiny and there were a lot of activities that we had to
formulate. We had to educate people so that people would be supportive of
what was going on in the community; they knew to come out when there were
large masses of police operations. When it was safe to do so if someone was
to be arrested - to not necessarily interfere, because that would be in
violation of the law - but to at least observe. And we believe that by our
actions and our activities and our educational processes in the Black Panther
Party, circumstances like the Rodney King episode came about, because the
people began to pay attention and people began to become involved, whereas
before they would’ve thought “No, I can’t get involved.” They were actually
involved in determining their own destiny as opposed to being told and effectively
pigeon-holed into an existence according to the powers that be.
That in essence I think was my contribution
to the Black Panther Party when I came home in 1969.
Q- Could you briefly explain what COINTELPRO is?
A- Well, COINTELPRO is an acronym for Counter Insurgency Program
[Counterintelligence Program] and this Counter Insurgency Program was primarily
an attack that was put into place to stymie growth and development in the
Black community in terms of leadership towards political empowerment. If
you were not a member of the accepted protest groups, if you were not a member
of say the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People],
or if you were not a member of CORE [Congress of Racial Equality], then
you could not be a dissident in America. You had to effectively not protest.
It was felt that America had too many skeletons in its closet and it did
not wish any scrutiny of its activities past or present. So, in order to
protect itself it began to implement programs that were primarily designed
so that in the event that something developed, to remove it. And that meant
many, many things from the misrepresentation of the legal aspects of say
Martin Luther King, to the murdering outright of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
I mean it just covered all the bases.
Q-How is your health?
A- My health, hmm. This is like a two-fold question, I will answer
part one now and I will come back to it again at another time. But, primarily
I was diagnosed with diabetes in the year 2000 and at the same time I was
informed that I also had antibodies for the infection hepatitis C. The
diabetes it what we call the adult on-set diabetes. I was in my fifties
when it just occurred out of the clear blue sky and I have no history of
it in my family, so it was a radical change in my life. Within a week of
being diagnosed with diabetes, I was informed that I had hepatitis C. And
I asked at that time what was the cure for it, and I was told that there
was no cure for hepatitis C. That I had nothing to worry about, that it takes
a long time to come in, it has a long time to incubate and this, that and
the other.
And so he says, “You probably got
it… Did you ever use drugs intravenously?” And I told him no. And he says,
“Have you ever had a blood transfusion?” No. And he says, “Well, let’s
just face the facts then, probably sometime in the past like when you were
in the street or something you was using drugs and it has an incubation
period of from anywhere from 15 to 20 years, so you know, that’s probably
what it is." So I looked at him and I said “Well excuse me, at this point
in time, I’ve never had drugs in my life. I have no drug history, coming
into the facility with drugs, or having drugs, or participation inside the
facility since I’ve been here. I’ve been down 27 years, so where did this
stuff come from?”
It had to come from in here. It could
not have come from outside. So therefore it’s the only conclusion I can
draw, because I don’t shoot drugs, and because the hepatitis C infection
is transmitted the same way the AIDS virus is transmitted. That is through
intravenous, tattooing, or homosexual contact, blood to blood contact, and
I had none of these that I could identify with. I could only conclude that
I was given hepatitis C from the State. Some unprofessional health care provider,
probably inadvertently, while taking blood from somebody, was carrying on
dialog with somebody else, and when I showed up to have my blood checked,
hit me with the same needle that somebody else had. I’m saying it’s possibly
an error. I’m not saying it was intentional. But by that same token, that’s
how I came into contact with hepatitis C.
So when they realized that it could
not have sat by and incubated for 27 years, the fact that it was in its
very early, early stages, that it was only manifesting, that I could not
have had this in the street, I had to have had it here. And there was no
record of any kind of drug use, or embodiment in the whole time I’d been
here so, they were stymied. When I found out I had hepatitis C and I began
to solicit, because I had these two infections simultaneously maintaining
and manifesting themselves, I developed a lot of side effects that I was
attributing to the diabetes and they were false readings for things like
neuropathy because I was having symptoms. But it was, I believe today, a
combination of both those infections simultaneously. So with the neuropathy
I was requesting examination by an [endocrinologist], an expert on nerves.
And of course the State refused.
At that point in time, you know, we
knew that Nuh was already sick and Nuh had developed cancer and I was suspicious
of that, because Nuh had never mentioned that he had cancer, so we were
wondering, well what happened to him? Only to find out later on that they
were telling Nuh that the reason that he was having all of this pain that
he was complaining about was that he had diabetes, and that was what was
effecting him, until it was almost too late, when they discovered quite by
accident that he had cancer. Now mind you they’re checking his blood once
a month and when they’re checking his blood through the lab reports they were
doing lab work for almost everything, so they clearly knew earlier on exactly
what he had. But they waited until it was irreversible before they even told
him that he had it. And at that point they had just closed the book on the
epitaph and his obituary was already written.
In the same vein, in regards to my
health, they took their absolute time. First they refused to let me see an
[endocrinologist], they refused all aspects of me having any kind of liver
biopsy, which was necessary to check to see how far the liver had deteriorated
due to the hepatitis C. And they made a big hoop-de-doo over it, on the
strength that in order for me to have a complete physical examination I
had to first agree to take a program, a drug program, and participate in
a drug program for six months before I could have this hepatitis C medication
or health care examination, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, I refused. I refused on the
grounds that I have no drugs, I do not deal with drugs and it just didn’t
make any sense to me to submerge myself in a drug culture for six months
to learn all about drugs, and how to cut the drugs, how to sniff it, to
snort it and all the things that it would do to you, when I was already
of the mind that I didn’t wish to deal with that. That I live in a reality
where people around me everyday in population are getting high, but I don’t
have to be around that, I don’t have to dialog, observe, that I can always
move somewhere. The fact that I had no drug history indicated to me that
there was no need for it, but that it was only a justification to cook the
books. If I signed into this program and then later on tried to contest
it and argue that they gave this to me, they would say, “I do not know what
he’s talking about, as far as we’re concerned he took this drug program so
obviously he knew that there was something there, so that’s the end of that.”
To withhold my medical treatment on
the strength of some stupid program - I was willing to sacrifice, to say
well then, withhold it and we’ll see what the courts say about you withholding
medical treatment. That lasted all of about a year, when they decided that
with so many people involved in observing they were going to give me the
liver biopsy and when they gave it to me, it conformed the original diagnosis
that it was early on-set scleroses of the liver, could be treated fairly
easily with Interferon, with an 80% chance of recovery. They took that
issue and decided well, because I wasn’t going to take this [drug] program,
and they couldn’t really go on record saying that’s why he was refusing
it, they gave the excuse that the pharmaceutical department had not made
enough medicine, at this date in time, and at this date in time I was on
the waiting list to receive this Interferon/Ribitron cocktail. That lasted
all of about eight months and then they finally came up with it. I now take
Pegintron, which is an injection once a week, and I take Ribitron, 900 milligrams
in the morning, and 900 milligrams at night, which is an antibiotic. Both
of these antibiotics target the liver, to kill the scleroses and to regenerate
the liver. When they gave this to me, they handed me a bunch of pamphlets
because they were going to avoid the protocol, blood checking, the monitoring,
all of the things that they don’t do here for prisoners... we have received
no medical attention. And when they laid out the possible side effects for
it, it was quite frightening. Including suicidal tendencies, and what they
were saying is the part of the possibility of what one would go through,
taking this medication. I took a chance and I took it. After six weeks of
taking the medication I am thankfully glad to say that I have never had
a side effect. I attribute that to the fact that I’ve never been in a drug
culture. I’ve never been in an alcoholic culture. I do not drink, I do not
get high, I don’t participate in those things. So the medication that I’ve
taken has weakened me and shortened my endurance in some respects, but in
most ways I’m able to just keep moving. I’m exercising, I monitor what I’m
eating.
Again the protocol that they should
be following, they’re not. But in the six weeks that I’ve been on it, I
have had two blood tests, and I’m waiting for the results of that so that
I can send that out, so that can be reviewed by our medical teams outside
to see if I’m really in as good as shape as I feel I am. Because there is
no protocol here, nobody is even questioning what is happening, and if I
say I haven’t had any side effects, you know they are looking at me surprised
like, but I see no recording of any of this information, which is important
because they’re going to need a record in case something turns around. But
it’s, typical, typical, you know, “We’re forced to do this, we’re giving
you the meds, and we don’t like it. We would rather not do it, but you have
it and that’s the end of that.”
So you really have to on top of your
health care. There’s just no help anyplace else.
Q- On July 17, 2002, you came up for parole for the third
time, and you were denied yet again. On what grounds were you denied?
A- For the third time, consistently. I was denied
parole for 24 months for: Seriousness of the crime; criminal history; and
a preponderance for violence.
Let me explain what that means. This
was a decision as they wrote it out. What they said was because that I was
charged with a host of crimes, including attempted murder, murder, possession
of a weapon and blassy, blassy, blassy, as a member of the BLA [Black Liberation
Army], 29 years ago, because of that fact, that gave them the right to say
that I have a preponderancy for violence. Further, that I have a criminal
history. Well, the only problem with that, with both of those is for the
29 years that I have been down I have no new charges, including assault on
staff or assault on inmates or assault on anybody else. So how they can conclude
a preponderance of violence is beyond my capabilities to understand.
A criminal history as they have defined
it, again I have no charges. The only criminal history that I have ever
had is this charge that I got busted on 29 years ago. I had never been in
prison in my life. So when they talk about a criminal history, what history
are they talking about? In light of those two facts, the courts have ruled
consistently from 1991 to the year as early as 2001 that you cannot hit on
the nature of the crime. That you have to have mitigating circumstances to
substantiate that hit because the nature of the crime is never going to
change. What you were convicted of, say 50 years ago, 50 years later will
be the same thing you were convicted of. It’s never going to change. So,
when it came to me, the mitigating circumstances that they would need was
an assault, even something as simplistic as dirty urine for taking drugs.
Because that would indicate that, you know, I’m not really taking this seriously,
I’m committing crime and violating the rules and regulations as I go, and
so on, and so on, and so on.
What we are being hit by is was happened
to Jalil Anthony Bottom, my co-defendant. They put out strong propaganda,
a decision-making-public-opinion -hair-raising-fiery-rhetorical campaign
where they stated that “He’s a cop killer, and thirty years is not enough.”
What that expresses is public opinion. But these are public officials, in
and including the mayor. Mayor Bloomberg of New York City who also wrote
the parole board. These are public officials given the authority in the public
eye to carry out certain manifestations of the law, theyb should know the
law, and the Supreme Court had heard these arguments since 1991. And the
Supreme Court, in Supreme Court language has stated emphatically, being a
cop killer does not mean de facto you do not get parole. You can not use
that. To render public opinion and allow it, or try to enforce it to supercede
Supreme Court law is a violation of the law itself. The law has been emphatically
clear but the parole boards are attempting to blindside the law by asserting
its mandate. Its, how could we say, hidden agenda, which is in violation
of the law.
We in our appeals, must bring to the
public’s attention that this is taxation without representation. If we are
to pay taxes, then we should receive the rights under the law, as is written
within the law. And not be denied the law simply because America wishes
to hide its political prisoners. By criminalizing us, and claiming that
as criminals we are removed from political prisoner status, but by the same
token because we are political prisoners we don’t receive the rights of
those who are criminally confined, is a complete circle of contradictions.
You know that it’s a contradiction upon itself. Either we’re criminals and
we’re not political prisoners, or we’re political prisoners and we’re not
criminals. But, this is something that even if we’re unable to free ourselves
we will have had at least generated an educational process for those who
come after us, to have the tools with which to fight the future fight that
is to come.
Q- Are you planning to appeal this decision?
A- Absolutely. And I’ve just come across more
and more and more new information that gives a whole new slant on things.
In the past we were basically attacking the parole division, because there
was a belief on our part that they were the initiators of these kinds of stupidities
and violations of the law that we were undergoing. When lo and behold we
discovered a whole new nest of vipers, and these vipers had been manipulating
the law, violating the law, and because they were hidden they weren’t being
held accountable for the law that they had been given the responsibility
to uphold. Now that they’re out in the open we’re going to target them and
the parole board and we’re going to start to make some serious demands.
That no taxation without representation. We will think about suggesting
civil disobedience or many other factors inside the community, where the
community’s decisions and its powers or its empowerment is recognized and
that those who uphold the law and authority and are given a mandate by the
people will realize that they are subject to the will of the people and not
to their class position.
Q- Could you tell us a little bit about the New York Police Department’s
Terrorist Task Force?
A- Other than the fact that it was at one time
a mere wing of intelligence that was designed to act as a covert military
police force. To this day has broadened itself to the point that now they
are basically a paramilitary, what we would call a right-wing terrorist
force. When you look at the examples of El Salvador or Nicaragua or Colombia,
you see these right-wing militias that go around and carry out assassinations
and kidnappings and intimidations and every now and then a slap on its back
as a responsible entity when they make a major, major bust.
And in brief, that is what the New
York State’s Terrorist Task Force is. It was aptly named. It has carried
out this covert war of attrition by trying to disrupt any emerging intelligence,
consciousness raising, and/or economic or political support that it can
muster. And it has many, many heads like the hydra-head, and it uses all
of those. What we need to do is we need to photograph it, document it, you
know, and expose it. And I believe these things are being checked and challenged
on a continuous basis because at this date in time with so much catastrophe
around the world there are just no shadows in which to hide. People have
to be very outspoken, open with their illegalities.
Such is the case with mayor Bloomberg
of New York City. I mentioned that he was a public official, he is holding
a high-ranking office. Should he not know law? Shouldn’t he be responsible
to know that the office in which he delegates law from, he should be equipped
to at least know the law? For this man to write to the parole board and
say that on behalf of somebody else, not for myself but on behalf of somebody
else, “I wish to you to state that this man should not receive parole because
he’s a cop killer,” is in direct violation of the law, the law says you
may not do that. As a commissioner you may not hit a person because he’s
a cop killer, solely because he’s a cop killer. So what? What’s the difference
between if he was a grocery store owner? Does that mean that the man would
be acquitted if he killed a grocery store owner or a grandmother, and that
would be it? Because if he’s satisfied the initial aspect of the law, then
that’s it? He’s entitled to a second chance but if it’s the police, well
it’s the police. What roles have they played? And when we accept the 28 murders
and deaths of supporters and political prisoners over the years, which no
one has ever been brought to trial or convicted of, then, you know, you’re
asking a real lot of the public, who pay taxes everyday, to support an elitist
regiment of military God knows what.
I mean these people here they glorify
in slogans like, “There’s a blue wall when someone commits a heinous crime
and nobody tells.” They had a blue wall when Abner Louima was taken into
a bathroom and because he was Haitian and they say he’s not really a member
of the New York community here, and probably nobody understands what he
says, they took a broomstick and broke it up and tool pleasure in shoving
it up his rectum. They thought that was hilarious, to humiliate a grown
man to the point that he had no human rights as far as they were concerned,
that they were dealing with an animal that they could take these liberties
with. But when it came out that this very act had occurred, there was what
they call the blue wall. And they got away with that. They got away with
that because those who kept the wall intact are still out there carrying
themselves off, flaunting themselves off, as heroes today.
Q- Earlier in the interview, you mentioned your comrade Albert
Nuh Washington, a fellow member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation
Army, and also later a political prisoner. Nuh died in April of 2000, while
imprisoned in New York State. He had cancer, which was very late in being
diagnosed. In one of the last interviews he did before he died, he said
something to the effect of “I’ve been saying for years that every prisoner
with a life sentence, is on death row.” So what I want to ask you is what
you think about this and how it should impact the strategies of outside organizers.
A- I believe Nuh was 110% right and he alluded
to something very significant that almost simultaneously I was speaking
on.
When Nuh was diagnosed with cancer,
I had been diagnosed with this diabetes. I had arrived in the same facility
coming out of a SHU, Special Housing Unit, the box, you know, solitary
confinement, whatever you want to call it. I arrived at a facility called
Comstock, at the same time Nuh had been brought there. I was there when
Nuh was in Comstock, when he was in the hospital, we were arranging for
us to have a meeting. When at that stage Nuh had already been diagnosed with
having cancer. In my research and in my argument I learned that Nuh had been
coming down to the visiting rooms for a year and a half or so, constantly
complaining about back pains, and they were telling him that it was his
diabetes. I know, because I have diabetes, that they have to do a monthly
diagnosis of your blood. And when they take blood, it’s sent out to a certified
medical laboratory, that runs a host of tests on the blood. From hepatitis
C to colon to AIDS to everything. And everything is earmarked. When the body
is under attack the defense system in the body begins to make antibodies.
And this is how you find out that your have something. So I’m saying emphatically
that they knew Nuh had cancer long before it metastacized into a tumor and
became detrimental to his life.
When I heard about it I got back on
the phone and I said, “Let me tell you something, this is important, it
is not by accident that one of us has reached this stage, this far into
our years now, that we’re getting sick. And getting sick, all these sicknesses
are natural, they’re not by order of their skullduggery, but actually an
act of nature. We’re probably catching these diseases—possibly catching these
diseases, shall I say—naturally. But what they’re doing is they’re
allowing these diseases to manifest and to fester until they’re irreversible.
And once it’s irreversible we’re notified, ‘You have this,’ and then you have
days, weeks, or months to live.”
By the time that that was halfway
out of my mouth, I received notification that Teddy Jah Heath, another
comrade of mine, had been transferred into Greenhaven, from a long association
in another facility with people that he was educating with, and he sent
me a message saying that he didn’t like where he was at in Greenhaven, it
had changed very much, and after he had been there for ninety days without
a ticket, he was going to try to transfer out. But within three weeks, Jah
was dead.
We were told Jah had cancer, that
he had cancer of the stomach and he died. Jah himself had been complaining
for two years of constipation and stomach pains, and for two years no one
would even hint that he had cancer. By the time Jah found out that he had
cancer, he lived for two weeks, and then he was dead. My argument is, and
remains, that they are killing us. They are killing us by withholding medical
treatment for as long as absolutely possible. If they can inject you
with something, and in my case I have hepatitis C and I didn’t get it on my
own, and they could have given my anything in the course of that, I could
have something else that I have not even been told I have yet, that has been
festering in my body. But their whole manifestation is, say nothing, do nothing,
we will not release them, they will die.
Now, what can the public do?
The public must first become conscious. Without consciousness and education,
you cannot do anything. You must effectively begin to become empowered.
You become empowered though your own education and association, growth and
development, and working to be a part of consciousness-raising. There
are many, many ideas that I could offer, but they all have to have a foundation
from which to be constructed on. That foundation is consciousness.
All I can say at this point in time, or would be at liberty to say, is that
you must become conscious. You must effectively go out and educate
each other. You must effectively say, “We must fight against the draconian
laws, the unconscionable laws, the violations of laws, and we must hold
those who uphold the laws' feet to the fire when we give them a mandate in
which to exercise the law.” Because it is we who ultimately hold the
power. We must not be persuaded or swayed by economics, terror, imprisonment,
or the threat of any of those things. We must move forward for the
simple responsibility and cause of justice. Nothing else matters.
We have to leave a legacy for our children to grow up believing in, and working
towards a just and effective society. Any other society is intolerable.
We have no desire or need for it.
Q- Finally, I want to ask you what you think people
in outside communities should be prioritizing to support political prisoners
and prisoners of war.
A- I believe they should begin to sponsor letter-writing
campaigns to the congressional people that they voted into office.
They should begin to support community watchdog groups that are designed
to watch. We have community police commissions whose primary responsibility
is to monitor reports of abuses by police, anything else.
People have to realize that we’re
not going to get a second, third and fourth chance at this. This
is our life today. We must effectively take charge of our lives.
We must become conscious. We must become involved. We must gather
control of the schools, the economy, the labour, everything in our community.
We must effectively begin to talk to each other and express our views and
our ideas and dialogue around our differences, because if we do not, we
will be caught up with too many things to do, and not enough of us to do
them, when it’s too late. And then we’ll be just swept up doing anything
and then nothing.
We must begin to organize. And education
is the primary goal, and I think that we do need to support political prisoners,
but our primary objective should be the education of our children.
So we use political prisoners as types in shadows, teachers, examples, but
primarily it is the children that we are focusing on, telling them, “Listen,
we must rise up from this oppression.”
Only we can free ourselves. Only through
our involvement will we become free. We cannot stay on the side and wish
and hope and pray for it to come down and become. We will not understand
it or appreciate it unless we have been involved in the process of it. We
will not understand it or grasp its full significance unless we’re involved
in the process. So, I would call on the community to do everything and anything
in its power to empower the generations to come. Not the class representative
or the elite to come, but the generations to come. We want smart children,
we want experienced children, we want leadership in our children, so that
the generations that come after them will have a more sturdy foundation
with which to build the next generation.
Q- Well, thank you very much, Seth.
A- Well, thank you. I really enjoyed our
time, and I hope I’ve said something that will be effective and assisting
to several people.
Q- Oh, I’m sure you have.
During this interview, Robert Seth Hayes spoke about Albert Nuh Washington,
who died on April 28, 2000 of liver cancer while remaining captive at the
Regional Medical Unit at Coxsackie prison. The following is one of the many
poems that Nuh wrote:
SPIDERMAN
I have never been bitten by a radioactive spider
So I cannot climb walls
Or defeat a bunch of bad guys at once
But like Spiderman I have a sense of humor
Yet I’d give up some of this humor
To be able just for a few hours
To climb walls and bend bars
So as to leave this place without humor
And laugh at their wonder of
How did he do that?
If you would like to write Political Prisoner Robert Seth Hayes,
you may contact him at the following address:
Robert 'Seth' Hayes
Wende Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 1187
3622 Wende Road,
Alden, NY
14004-9733