thepeoplesrecord:

FBI to add Assata Shakur to Most Wanted Terrorist List; Doubles reward for her capture to $2 million
May 2, 2013

Forty years ago today, the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper led to the imprisonment and conviction of Black Panther Party member & revolutionary Assata Shakur.

Assata currently lives in exile in Cuba.

To commemorate this “anniversary,” the FBI will announce today that Assata Shakur has been added to the Most Wanted Terrorist List; and that reward for her capture has doubled, from $1 million to $2 million.

Why the Assata Shakur case still strikes a chord

Published in 1987, the autobiography chronicles Shakur’s emergence as an activist at the center of America’s racial conflict. She ultimately affiliated with the Black Panther Party and the black liberation movement in the 1960s. Her case and her bouts with the criminal justice system recall all of the angst and murkiness within which the battles for black freedom were fought in the mid-20th century: brutal prison conditions, falsified evidence, conflicting statements, frenzied media panic, and violent racists posing as officers of the law.

In spite of these at times unlawful and regularly dehumanizing experiences, Assata Shakur has been living in exile with asylum in Cuba since 1984.

‘She Who Struggles’

Assata – whose name means “she who struggles,” was implicated in the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper on May 2 1973. Today marks 40 years since that day.

While little detail is available as to how Ms. Shakur was ferreted away to freedom from the maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979, the “facts” of her case, or rather, the state’s case against her are shaky at best. By her supporters’ accounts they are institutionally designed to falsely prosecute and imprison her.

For more info on her case and details of her experiences go here.

As recently as 2005, the U.S. government issued a one million dollar bounty for information leading to her capture and/or extradition from Cuba. Her name, as well as her government name, Joanne Chesimard, has been on the FBI’s most wanted list since before most Americans had ever heard of Osama Bin Laden.

’20th Century Escaped Slave’

Assata refers to herself as “a 20th century escaped slave” and her experiences with the criminal justice system and the verve with which the U.S. government prosecuted and persecuted her suggest that this reference is not exaggerated in the slightest.

She has occasionally given interviews and or written from somewhere inside of Cuba, but it is unlikely that our government will ever be able to come to terms with its own role in the violent racial conflicts of its immediate past, and thus unlikely that Assata will ever be able to live freely in her country of origin – these United States.

Assata’s status, the government’s case against, her and the moment out which all of this emerged, are signal reminders to many of us that not so long ago, members of the Black Panther Party were considered the greatest threat to the United States government; that revolutionary activists like Assata Shakur, were considered this nation’s most feared terrorists.

We can only hope that as the fight against terror creeps through the beginnings of a new century, that this nation will fight to uphold the tenets of justice above and beyond its xenophobic and racialized history.

Source

Here is a free e-book version of Assata’s autobiography. Read & share this with everyone you know. Everyone should know Assata’s story & about her struggle. 

I’ve been hoping that before Obama leaves office, he will grant her amnesty. But with $2 million on her head, it just seems highly unlikely.

 

>via: http://knowledgeequalsblackpower.tumblr.com/post/49443157864/thepeoplesrecord-fbi-to-add-assata-shakur-to

So the FBI is increasing their bounty for Assata Shakur, once known as Joanne Chesimard to $2 million and putting her the Most Wanted Terrorist list.. Making her the first female in history to be put on such a list and basically making her be on par with the likes  ofOsama Bin Laden..This is beyond outrageous.

How long have some in this government been fiending for Assata?  30..35 years? Can you imagine if the FBI was this diligent about going after Wall Street Bankers who defrauded millions of people and tanked the economy or if they put $2 million dollar bounties out for war criminals who live right here in the US who purposely misled us into War where over a million lives were lost.. Yes, we are looking at you George Bush,Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice etc..

If were gonna talk about Assata and say she’s a ‘cop killer‘, let’s be completely honest and put such accusations into perspective.. Everyone wants to forget that in the 60s and 70s the FBI and police declared War on the Black community and organizations that formed in the community to end oppression. The police and FBI went all out to destroy Black leaders and Black organizations with undaunted impunity. The reason why you had BPP (Black Panther Party), SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and BLA (Black Liberation Army) was in response to police terrorism that saw them assassinating, brutalizing or jailing Panthers and members of other Black Power organizations left and right for little or no reason..So if we’re gonna talk about Assata, let’s talk the murders of unarmed Fred Hamptonand Mark Clark? Lets talk about the murder of Lil Bobby Hutton. Can we say COINTEL-PRO?

 

Can we talk about Cointel-pro which was a subversive counter-intelligent war tactic used by J Edgar Hooverand the FBI to ‘neutralize‘  The Chicano Movement,Puerto Rican Independence Movement, Anti-War/ Free Speech Student Movement, American Indian Movement, Civil Rights Movement and of course theBlack Power Movements.. Can we talk about how the FBI would send incendiary letters to different organizations in an attempt to pit folks against one another with the hope of creating rifts that would lead to bloodshed? Can we talk about campaigns used by the FBI to character assassinate important leaders. No one was off-limits.. Not Dr Martin Luther king, Not Malcolm X, not Huey newton and Bobby Seale.. No one..

Let’s talk about how this insidious Cointel-pro operation resulted in people still rotting in jail 25, 30 and even 40 years later, on questionable and trumped-up charges. Let’s talk about political prisoners like the Angola 3, now 2,  who are not only locked up, but going on their second and third decades in solitary confinement.

Let’s talk about the vicious, tortuous persecution of the government to go after and press new charges on former Panthers like the SF 8, 30 years after the fact. let’s talk about how these men all in their 70s had to undergo a trial with former police and FBI agents who once physically tortured them 30 years ago, being the officers to serve them new warrants.  The SF 8 were all found innocent again, but it should be reminded, what they endured back in the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s was around the time that Assata Shakur and others like her hit the scene ready to push back on the overwhelming oppression.

Let’s talk about the fact that wanna the goals of the FBI’s Cointel-Pro program was to prevent the rise of a charismatic Black leader and instead find someone who was safe and acceptable to lead the masses.

 

$2 Million dollars to get Assata? Where’s the $2 million dollar bounty to go after those in government who partook in that Cointel-pro war? Perhaps those individuals should be hunted down 50 years after the fact the way we still hunt down Nazi War criminals? After all, entire communities were destroyed by this..

Do you honestly think folks like Assata woke up one day and said they wanted to go smash on brutalizing organizations like the police and FBI who out gunned them and outnumbered them? I don’t think so.. Were people like Assata down make the sacrifice to defend themselves and their community from all the firebombings and other atrocities that were routinely occurring throughout the south by KKK while police turned a blind eye or even helped? Absolutely

Let’s talk about the countless number of unarmed Black folks murdered at alarming rates by out of control police, many who were recruited from the south with the directive of keeping Black folks in a state of fear and in check..Lets get a 2 million dollar bounty for those sadistic officers

Can we talk about entire Black Towns destroyed by mobs of angry whites who saw our humanity as a threat.. places like Black Wall Street in Tulsa or Rosewood in Florida? Often times the police were right alongside when these horrors occurred.

Bottom line don’t talk about any ‘wrong doings’ by Assaata without underscoring state sponsored repression and the all out military and terrorist attacks on Black organizations and Black people at that time.. We can start by talking about with all the people gunned down by cops during the Newark Riots.. We can talk about folks like the late Geronimo Pratt (Jijaga) being framed and made to sit in jail for 30 years … There’s along, long list.. Simply put, There ain’t no innocent people wearing those badge so don’t be fooled..Asaata a terrorist?? Hell naw, she was fighting terrorists..

Oh by the way.. Thank you president Obama, all this bounty stuff  happening on your watch within a division of government you control..Its a damn shame..

On another note, I gotta wonder how Common is feeling.. It was just two weeks ago he kicked some nice lyrics about his meeting with Assata when he visited Cuba. he also said we need to get behind Obama who thus far is allowing this to go down..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egLRN2NsBgY