 |
|
|
| Assata Shakur |
The Hands Off Assata Movement
From www.handsoffassata.org
Special to SeeingBlack.com
Talk
about these issues! Click here.
|
Assata
Shakur:
The Government's
Terrorist is Our Community's Heroine
 By Mos Def
Special to SeeingBlack.com
Earlier this month the federal government
issued a statement in which they
labeled Joanne Chesimard, known to most in the Black community
as Assata
Shakur, as a domestic terrorist. In so doing, they also increased
the bounty
on her head from $150,000 to an unprecedented $1,000,000.
Viewed through the
lens of U.S. law enforcement, Shakur is an escaped cop-killer.
Viewed
through the lens of many Black people, including me, she
is a wrongly
convicted woman and a hero of epic proportions.
My first memory of Assata Shakur was
the "Wanted" posters
all over my
Brooklyn neighborhood. They said her name was Joanne Chesimard,
that she was
a killer, an escaped convict, and armed and dangerous. They
made her sound
like a super-villain, like something out of a comic book.
But even then, as
a child, I couldn't believe what I was being told. When I
looked at those
posters and the mug shot of a slight, brown, high-cheekboned
woman with a
full afro, I saw someone who looked like she was in my family,
an aunt, a
mother. She looked like she had soul. Later, as a junior
high school
student, when I read her autobiography, Assata, I would discover
that not
only did she have soul, she also had immeasurable heart,
courage and love.
And I would come to believe that that very heart and soul
she possessed was
exactly why Assata Shakur was shot, arrested, framed and
convicted of the
murder of a New Jersey State Trooper.
There are some undisputed facts about the case. On May 2nd,
1973, Assata
Shakur, a Black Panther, was driving down the New Jersey
State Turnpike with
two companions, Zayd Shakur and Sundiata Acoli. The three
were pulled over,
ostensibly for a broken tail light. A gun battle ensued,
why and how it
started is unclear. But the aftermath is not. Trooper Werner
Forester and
Zayd Shakur lay dead. Sundiata Acoli escaped [he was captured
two days
later]. And Assata was shot and arrested. At trial, three
neurologists would
testify that the first gunshot shattered her clavicle and
the second
shattered the median nerve in her right hand. That testimony
proved that she
was sitting with her hands raised when she was fired on by
police. Further
testimony proved that no gun residue was found on either
of her hands, nor
were her finger prints found on any of the weapons located
at the scene.
Nevertheless, Shakur was convicted by an all-White jury and
sentenced to
life in prison. Six years and six months to the day that
she was arrested,
and aided by friends, Shakur escaped from Clinton Women's
Prison in New
Jersey. As a high school student I remember seeing posters
all around the
Brooklyn community I lived in that read: Assata Shakur is
Welcome Here. In
1984, she surfaced in Cuba and was granted political asylum
by Fidel Castro.
There are those who believe that being convicted
of a crime makes you
guilty. But that imposes an assumption of infallibility upon
our criminal
justice system. When Assata Shakur was convicted of killing
Werner Forester,
not only had the Black Panther Party been labeled by then
F.B.I. director,
J. Edgar Hoover, as "the greatest internal threat" to
American security, but
Assata herself had been thoroughly criminalized in the minds
of the American
public; she'd been charged in six different crimes ranging
from attempted
murder to bank robbery, and her acquittal or dismissal of
the charges
outright notwithstanding, to the average citizen, it seemed
she must be
guilty of something. And she was. She was guilty of calling
for a shift in
power in America, and for racial and economic justice. Included
on a short
list of the many people who have made that call and were
either
criminalized, terrorized, killed or blacklisted are Paul
Robeson, Martin
Luther King, Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman, Medgar Evers
and Ida B. Wells.
Perhaps what is most insulting about the government's latest
attack on
Assata is that while they vigorously pursue her extradition,
a few years ago
using it as a bargaining chip for lifting the embargo itself,
they have been
decidedly lackadaisical in pursuing the extradition to Venezuela
of an
admitted terrorist, Florida resident Luis Posada Carriles.
Carriles is
likely responsible for blowing up a Cuban airline in 1976,
an act which
claimed the lives of some 73 innocent civilians.
For those of us who either remember the state of the union
in the 1960s and
1970s or have studied it, when we consider Assata Shakur
living under
political asylum in Cuba, we believe that nation is exercising
its political
sovereignty, and in no way harboring a terrorist. Cubans
sees Assata as I,
and many others in my community do: as a woman who was and
is persecuted for
her political beliefs. When the federal government raised
the bounty on her
head this May 2, one official declared that Assata was merely "120
pounds of
money." For many of us in the Black community she could
never be so reduced.
For many of us in the Black community, she was and remains,
to use her own
words, an "escaped slave," a heroine, not unlike
Harriet Tubman.
Mos Def, an actor and rapper, is currently starring in The
Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy.
|
On May 2nd the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New Jersey
Troopers publicly announced a $1 million bounty for the capture
of Assata
Shakur. May 2nd also marked the 32nd anniversary of the fatal shootout
on the
New Jersey Turnpike that resulted in the deaths Trooper Werner
Foerster and
Zayd Shakur, and left Assata Shakur and Sundiata Acoli wounded.
Assata and
Sundiata were both tried and convicted in separate trials for the
deaths of
Werner Foerster and Zayd Shakur.
Convicted of murder for the death of a New Jersey State Trooper
in
1977, Assata has been living in exile in Cuba. She is not convicted
for any
other incident or crime. In 1998 the New Jersey Troopers petitioned
Pope John
Paul II as he prepared for his historic visit to Cuba and meeting
with
President Fidel Castro. They wanted him to pressure President Castro
to return Assata to the United States. The Pope flatly turned down their
request but did
advise then President Clinton that the United States needed to
end the
senseless and inhumane blockade against Cuba.
|
|
Since the rise to power of Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez in
1998,
the United States has greedily watched as political links developed
between
Cuba and Venezuela. What does Venezuela have that the United States
wants?
Oil! What does Cuba have that the United States wants? It occupies
a
strategic geographic location that would enable the United States
to
militarily control the Caribbean. Of course Cuba also has the tenacity
to show
the people of the world that there is another way to exist. It
is possible for
education and health care to be guaranteed to every citizen. It
is possible
for every citizen to have a home and most importantly, hope for
the future.
It is a sovereign nation with the right to grant asylum whenever
it sees fit.
Equally important is that the majority of the Cuban population is of African descent. The significance of this fact is not lost on the other Third World
nations around the globe.
The United States' CIA has boldly intervened in Venezuelan affairs
and
aided in the failed coup there in 2002. Bitter to admit defeat,
the United
States continued to look for ways to provoke a confrontation with
President
Chavez. They found it in Luis Posada Carriles. In fact, Posada
provides Bush with a two for one shot at Chavez and Castro. For
many years
Posada has been a CIA operative. He is wanted in Venezuela for
his role in the
1976 shoot down of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 civilians including
the
national fencing team. He escaped from prison there. In 1998 he
claimed
responsibility for planning attacks on various Cuban establishments
including
the 1997 bombing of a tourist hotel that resulted in the death
of an Italian
tourist and the wounding of 11 others. In 2000 Posada was arrested
in Panama
for plotting to murder President Castro during the Ibero-American
summit being
held in that country. He was convicted and sentenced to eight years.
In
November 2004, the outgoing Panamanian President, Mireya Moscoso,
pardoned
Posada allegedly in exchange for $4 million paid by a Cuban American.
Money
talked and Posada walked, disappearing from public view for several
months.
In March 2005, he surfaced in Miami. His lawyer, Eduardo Soto,
admitted
a few weeks later that Posada was in Miami as he filed his petition
for
political asylum. House of Representative William Delahunt (D-Mass)
stated recently, "I can't imagine how one could defend a terrorist
where there
exists overwhelming evidence that he was responsible or a co-conspirator
in
blowing up a civilian airliner."
Meanwhile President Castro issued a series of statements about
Posada's
presence in the United States and accused Bush of harboring of
a
terrorist. His comments grabbed the attention of the local media
and hit a
sympathetic nerve. It was impossible to explain Posada's presence
in the United
States after the numerous public statements Bush had made about
terrorists.
Perhaps the most memorable of these is "If you harbor a terrorist,
you are a
terrorist." Things were getting very ugly very fast for Bush.
However, the timing couldn't have been better (for the Bush
administration) since the anniversary of the New Jersey Turnpike
incident was
fast approaching. Here was an opportunity to "save face" and
take another
stab at Castro. A miserably transparent attempt to deflect attention
from
the political embarrassment of Posada's presence developed overnight.
In the blink of an eye, Assata was suddenly placed on the domestic
terrorist list. How very convenient. Now Bush could aim a similar
accusation at
Castro, harboring a terrorist.
Turning back to Assata and her 1973 chance encounter with Trooper
Foerster on the New Jersey Turnpike, it can hardly be labeled a
terrorist act
or plot no matter how you characterize the facts. No doubt she
and her
companions did not plan on the events of May 2, 1973. They didn't
plan or
provoke any encounter with the police nor did they brag about Trooper
Foerster's death.
Who defines a terrorist? What actions define a terrorist? Is it
a
politically manipulated designation used to further the agendas
of the
present administration? While there is certainly no agreed upon
definition of 'terrorism' even the U.S. State Department's self-serving
definition that it involves "premeditated, politically motivated
violence
perpetrated against non-combatant targets" rules out the incident
on the NJ
Turnpike which was — by all accounts — initiated by
the troopers in a state
notoriously known for racial profiling on the Turnpike.
Assata stands convicted (the result of a highly politicized trial)
of
one criminal act, the murder of Trooper Foerster. The U.S. Department
of
Justice Office of Justice Programs reports that the FBI identified
785
assailants convicted in the killing of law enforcement officers
between
1993 and 2002. Should we expect that the next political announcement
to be
that those 785 individuals have also been placed on the domestic
terrorism
list? Is a murder conviction of a police officer the criteria?
If so, then
should we expect the list to increase by at least 785?
Perhaps, the commission of any heinous act makes one a terrorist.
If
so, what of the joint team of FBI agents and Chicago police that
murdered
Black Panther leaders, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, in their sleep
during in a
pre-dawn raid at their apartment? Should they not be named as terrorists?
When now, Reverend, then Mayor, Wilson Goode ordered the bombing
of the MOVE
headquarters located at 6221 Osage Avenue in Philadelphia in 1985
that killed
11 people including 5 children, and resulted in the destruction
of the entire
neighborhood, including 62 homes, was that an act of terrorism?
Should we
expect to see his name added to the list? Were the New York City
Police
Officers who shot and killed the unarmed grandmother, Eleanor Bumpers,
during
an apartment eviction, terrorists? They murdered her. Maybe the
members of
New York's finest that fired 41 bullets at unarmed immigrant Amadou
Diallo
will have their names added to the list of domestic terrorists.
If this be
the case, should not the names of the convicted abortion clinic
bombers be
added to the list? Are the officers who beat, assaulted and sodomized
young
Abner Louima terrorists? What about the soldiers who shot unarmed
detainees in
Guantanamo?
In this current climate we find the terrorism label abused and
manipulated. Political motivations, not international law, or
ethical
sensibilities, are increasingly being used to determine who is
and who is not
defined as a terrorist. It is an outrage that this government would
offend the
sensitivities of the American public by labeling Assata Shakur
a
terrorist.
In 1976 the Senate Select Subcommittee headed by Senator Frank
Church
of Utah issued its report on the activities of the FBI's Counter
Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). That Program was aimed at destroying
any
political dissent in the country. Among its targets were Rev. Martin
Luther
King, Kwame Ture' (f.k.a. Stokely Carmichael) Malcolm X, the Black
Panther
Party, the Black Liberation Army, the New Left, the Weather Underground,
the
American Indian Movement, the Puerto Rican independence movement
and
the Communist Party. Led by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI left no stone
unturned and no dirty trick untried. Part of this campaign was
to criminalize legitimate political movements and individuals.
The FBI maimed, murdered and
imprisoned hundreds of political activists. The Report concluded
that "Many of
the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society
even if
all the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO
went far
beyond that." The condemnation of the FBI practices temporarily
limited its activities.
However, in 2001 the FBI was able to publicly reinstitute all
the
previously condemned COINTELPRO practices under the guise of the
Patriot Act.
Increased surveillance of political organizations and individuals
began. Harassment, arrest, incarceration and intimidation of political
activists have
once again been restored as "acceptable" police practices.
This recent labeling of Assata as a terrorist is done as part
of the
broader campaign to demonize and criminalize political dissent
and resistance. This agenda was begun by the previous United States
Attorney General, John
Ashcroft. All over the country FBI agents started questioning and
harassing past and present political activists. In courtrooms and
filed
documents, the FBI and U.S. Attorneys began referring to domestic
political
activists as terrorists. The label has far reaching implications.
The First
Amendment is in serious danger and so is anyone who dares to exercise
their
rights under its protections. Her name must immediately be removed
from the list and the bounty offer rescinded.
— June 1, 2005
© Copyright
2001-05 Seeing Black, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
