Odel’s request for his final meal was a very rare dish - on his sheet he simply wrote "Justice, Equality and World Peace". Predictably the sheet came back with the words - "Unable to Deliver". No one was too surprised in Texas. Odel isn’t the only African American on death row in the U.S. African Americans happen to be over-represented there as a matter of course. In New Jersey the Public Defender’s Capital Defence Appeals unit recently filed statistics with the Governor of that state showing beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you are black and tried for murder the District Attorney will, more likely than not, press for a death sentence. Conversely, if you are black and happen to be murdered the District Attorney is less likely to prosecute the offender as death sentence eligible than if the victim was white. Race bias in America’s prison industrial complex is deep and widespread. Big business interests are too. Marriott Hotels is only one of many transnationals that make big bucks from U.S. prisons - they supply some of the pre-prepared food for a prison population that has reached the 2 million mark. It’s boom time and the bodies of prisoners are now effectively being traded on Wall Street and other stock markets.

Why should any of this matter to Irish republicans? Once upon a time Irish republican leaders might have spoken out in opposition to the death penalty, for ethical and moral as well as historical and political reasons. But now it seems that the republican leadership, like the Texas Department of Corrections, is quite unable to deliver.

Mumia Abu Jamal, an African American male, has been on death row for about 18 years. He was convicted of killing a cop in disputed circumstances during a fracas on the streets in which he was also shot and badly wounded

The first question any journalist or lawyer asks about a suspect caught on a murder rap in the U.S. is ‘where?’. For good reason - some states have the death penalty and others do not. Unfortunately for Mumia Abu Jamal the ‘where’ in his case is the executing state of Pennsylvania. The Irish republican leadership is well aware of the fact that the Congressmen and Senators that Pennsylvania sends to Washington D.C. take careful note of the wishes of that states’ large and well organised Irish American community. Look through any list of resolutions supporting Irish nationalist and republican policy positions in the U.S. Congress and the Pennsylvania names will be there. In Pennsylvania the Irish American vote counts and when it comes to payback time the politicians know it. No doubt some of the one thousand guests at the recent $500 a head Sinn Fein dinner dance in New York City slipped over from New York’s sister state of Pennsylvania.

Mumia Abu Jamal is going through the final legal hurdle before he is murdered by judicial decree. If the Federal judge dismisses the last appeals which argue that Mumia’s due process rights were denied at his original trial the campaign passes out of the hands of lawyers and over entirely to mass action. The last remaining hope is to seek a pardon from Pennsylvania’s Governor.

Human Rights campaigners working to stay Mumia’s execution have twice written to Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, with a plea for him to make a statement calling on the Irish American community in Pennsylvania to pressure their political representatives to get the governor to stay the execution. The campaigners know that the wishes of that community could well prove crucial. If the state were Wyoming it really wouldn’t matter very much but in Pennsylvania a statement from Adams would help to open some doors. Yet the plea remains unanswered. When an earlier request was made by phone to the Sinn Fein Press Office the message back was - sorry Sinn Fein will not make a statement as party policy prevents it from interfering in the internal affairs of foreign countries.

Somehow that seems deeply cynical from a movement that plasters it’s gable ends with anti-racist images and slogans and who in the past has been happy to call for and accept solidarity from foreign nations. But given recent events there are few left now who will be too surprised.

Lin Solomon is a human rights activist in the USA