Long-time Chicano activist Carlos Montes, co-founder of the Brown Berets and leader of the 1968 East Los Angeles high school walkouts, is facing a possible 16 years in prison after the FBI raided his home.
Montes gave a talk on Wednesday Aug. 29, discussing his most recent encounter with the FBI: On May 17 at 5 a.m., federal agents working in conjunction with the L.A. County Sherriff SWAT team, broke down Montes’ door and confiscated his computer, cell phones, hundreds of documents, photos and diskettes.
“I was sound asleep when it happened,” Montes told the crowd. “They broke in and aimed guns at my head … they ransacked my house and they went through everything.”
The event, called “Why is the FBI Targeting Carlos Montes?” was sponsored by the Bay Area Committee to Stop Political Repression, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and the Center for Political Education, which provided a space for the roughly 80 people attending the talk.
The Bay Area Committee to Stop Political Repression is a chapter of the Committee to Stop Political Repression, a group formed in response to the FBI raids in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan on the homes and offices of several anti-war groups, including the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, Students for a Democratic Society and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
The FBI arrested Montes and questioned him about his current political activities in the pro-immigrant rights struggle and Chicano civil rights movement.
“They said they were arresting me because I was a convicted felon and because I was in possession of a gun,” Montes said. “Now I have to go to court for six felonies.”
Montes said that his guns had been registered long ago, and that he believes his arrest was based on connections to particular activist groups.
Montes said that he is now under investigation for providing “material support” to organizations officially listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.
The “material support” provision of the Patriot Act has received wide criticism from human rights organizations for its ambiguity on the kinds of things can be considered support, ranging from providing weapons, to teaching language lessons, to housing anyone involved in the groups found under the government’s list of terrorist organizations.
Sentences for those found guilty of minimal forms of material support can be as high as 15 years. When asked to comment on the issue of material support, Montes said, “Solidarity is not crime.”
After discussing his current charges, Montes went on to recount his involvement in the movement for Chicano civil rights in the 1960s and the lessons he learned from the anti-Vietnam War movement, with the caveat that there wasn’t nearly enough time to cover everything.
“I learned from Vietnam that the struggle isn’t just about education, or peace or justice,” Montes said. “It’s a struggle for liberation and self-determination.”
Montes said he was under attack because of his sympathy for the oppressed people of the world.
Montes spoke alongside Cynthia Muñoz Ramos from Causa Justa who laid out the most recent profiling of immigrant populations from the FBI and ICE, and Nancy Hernandez who spoke about the severe water crisis in occupied Palestine.
Muñoz spoke of the importance of joining or starting a local organization and spreading the word about what has been happening, emphasizing that this event was an effort to do just that.
“They tried to stop the Chicano movement in the ‘60s, they’re doing the same thing in LA now,” Montes said. “I learned from the ‘60s and ‘70s that you have to put up campaigns to free political prisoners.”
Over $1,000 was raised at the event to help pay for Montes’ legal fees. He is expected to go to court on Sept. 29.
Visit www.stopfbi.net to view a petition and read recent news on other activists who have been a target of FBI raids.