MAY 4 MOVEMENT for TRUTH & JUSTICE: major progress in 2009?

Anticipating the election of our progressive new President Obama, the Kent May 4 Center has been preparing our inevitable approach to a new Attorney General & US Justice Department in 2009.

We're consulting attorneys now in New York, San Francisco & Columbus, Ohio. We will be presenting our case for renewed investigations of our longstanding injustices at Kent & Jackson State based upon suppressed evidence including our recent proof of the verbal commands to fire upon unarmed students & other new information.

Stay tuned. Here's quotes from today's NEW YORK TIMES newspaper, re: new US Attorney General Eric Holder:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/nyregion/01holder.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&sq&st=cse&%2334;eric%20holder&%2334;&scp=1

"...[HOLDER] began to read book after book on World War II and biographies of public servants, drawing inspiration from the story of redemption he saw in "The Autobiography of Malcolm X."

"...When he arrived at Columbia in 1969 as a boyish-looking freshman, he was recruited by upperclassmen to help take over the R.O.T.C. office. Armed with pillowcases and sheets, he joined several dozen students and christened the office as a student center named for Malcolm X...

"...As history unfolded around him — the shootings of students at Kent State and Jackson State — Mr. Holder saw the law as an instrument of change.

"The law inevitably is wound up with some great political movements, social movements," he said. "I wanted to be a part of that." [END OF SELECTED QUOTES]

Our new US AG and the Ohio AG will hear our appeals for justice in 2009. Get ready.

--Alan Canfora, Director
Kent May 4 Center
Kent, Ohio

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1989 EL SALVADOR MASSACRE: JUSTICE SOON? KENT STATE JUSTICE IN 2009?

NOVEMBER 14, 2008: Just as justice is coming to El Salvador years after a 1989 massacre, inevitably justice will also be realized at Kent, Ohio. Since 1970, our persistent May 4 Movement for truth and justice has not been silenced.

In 2009, we will be moving forward with legal actions in Washington and Columbus, Ohio. Hopefully, we will not be forced to seek justice in Spain -- President Obama, an improved US Justice Department & an enlightened Ohio Democratic Governor Ted Strickland will be increasingly receptive to our further proof of the May 4, 1970, verbal command to shoot and kill unarmed KSU students.

The cover-up of murder at Kent State is soon fully revealed. Stay tuned.

--Kent May 4 Center, Kent, Ohio

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November 14, 2008, NEWS FROM SPAIN:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/world/americas/14salvador.html?ref=world

Jesuit Killings in El Salvador Could Reach Trial in Spain

By VICTORIA BURNETT
Published: November 13, 2008

MADRID — Nearly 20 years after the Salvadoran Army killed six Jesuit priests in one of the most notorious events of El Salvador’s civil war, a criminal complaint filed in the Spanish High Court has revived hopes that those behind the massacre could face trial.

Early on Nov. 16, 1989, six priests, a housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter were killed by the Salvadoran Army on the campus of the Central American University in San Salvador.
Human rights lawyers filed a complaint on Thursday against the Salvadoran president at the time, Alfredo Cristiani Burkard, and 14 former members of the Salvadoran military, for their roles in the killings of the priests and two female employees, and in the official cover-up that followed. International outrage over the murders proved to be pivotal in sapping American support for United States military assistance to the Salvadoran Army.

“We hope this case helps to reawaken the memory and the conscience of El Salvador’s people,” said Almudena Bernabeu, a lawyer for the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, a human rights law center, which filed the case along with the Spanish Association for Human Rights.

The Spanish High Court must decide whether to press charges against the men and seek their extradition to Spain, Ms. Bernabeu said.

The crusading Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón made legal history in 1998 when he secured the arrest in Britain of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet using a Spanish legal principle that crimes against humanity can be prosecuted anywhere. General Pinochet narrowly escaped extradition to Spain by pleading ill health. Since then, Spain’s High Court has received cases connected to rights abuses in several countries, including Argentina, Chile and Guatemala.

In the early hours of Nov. 16, 1989, members of the Salvadoran Army forced their way into the Jesuit priests’ residence on the campus of the Central American University in San Salvador. They ordered five of the priests to lie face-down in the garden and shot them, and then searched the house, killing another priest, the housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter. But another housekeeper witnessed the attack.

A 1991 report by a United Nations-sponsored Truth Commission said Gen. René Emilio Ponce, then army chief, ordered the killing of one of the priests, Ignacio Ellacuría Bescoetxea. General Ponce ordered soldiers to leave no witnesses to the murder of Father Ellacuría, who had promoted peace talks between the right-wing military government and Marxist guerrillas.

The complaint filed on Thursday accuses former President Cristiani of helping cover up a crime against humanity. It accuses General Ponce and the 13 other former military officials and soldiers of crimes against humanity, murder and state-sponsored terrorism for their involvement in the slaughter.

Carlos Martín-Baró, whose brother was one of the priests killed, said the case had rekindled his hopes of justice. However, he said he was past seeking retribution for his brother’s murder and hoped any legal process would contribute to a wider fight against injustice in El Salvador.

Despite the witness account, the investigations and circumstantial evidence, efforts to make El Salvador’s military account for the killings have been largely fruitless. In a 1991 trial held in El Salvador, two military officials were convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The two were released under a 1993 amnesty.

Gisela de León, a lawyer with the Center for Justice and International Law in Costa Rica, said she was cautiously optimistic that Thursday’s court filing could result in the defendants’ facing trial in Spain.

“It will put pressure on the Salvadoran authorities and remind them that there is an international community out there and they have to respect its norms,” she said by telephone.

Even if the suspects were not extradited, the Spanish case could force a trial in El Salvador, Ms. Bernabeu said. Any prosecution would serve as some form of justice and help strengthen calls for a repeal of the country’s controversial amnesty law, she said.

“Remember, Pinochet died a criminal,” she said.

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» A version of this article appeared in print on November 14, 2008, on page A10 of the New York edition.

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MAJOR 2008-2009 NEWS from KENT, OHIO
Submitted by Alan Canfora on Fri, 2008-06-13 20:42.

A) a new 2008-2009 Hollywood feature film linking Vietnam & Kent State, partly based upon the soon-published memoir by Alan Canfora, is now on the horizon;

B) a new 2008-2009 international TV program will prove Alan Canfora was correct in 2007 when he revealed audio-recorded proof of the May 4, 1970, verbal ORDER TO FIRE at Kent State University. The militaristic, shouting voice on the recording will be analyzed for positive identification;

C) new investigations of additional hidden Kent State 1970 evidence are coming in Washington and Ohio. We also seek a government-recognized Truth Commission.

D) the cover-up of intentional murder at Kent State is now destroyed and will be more fully revealed in days, weeks and months ahead.

Stay tuned here at may4.org and at http://alancanfora.com/