A WORD FROM ASSATA

Assata Speaks! Written by Assata Shakur Thursday, 19 May 2005



By Assata Shakur

My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave.
Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice
than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that
dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. I am an
ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since
1984.



I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the
U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me,
I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I
participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement,
the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in
Vietnam.

I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party
had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI's
COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the
total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called
it "greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and
vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United
Nations Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference
of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political
Repression, and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial
Justice, exposing the existence of political prisoners in the United
States, their political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman
treatment they receive in US prisons.

According to the report: The FBI and the New York Police Department
in particular, charged and accused Assata Shakur of participating in
attacks on law enforcement personnel and widely circulated such
charges and accusations among police agencies and units. The FBI and
the NYPD further charged her as being a leader of the Black
Liberation Army which the government and its respective agencies
described as an organization engaged in the shooting of police
officers. This description of the Black Liberation Army and the
accusation of Assata Shakur's relationship to it was widely
circulated by government agents among police agencies and units. As
a result of these activities by the government, Ms. Shakur became a
hunted person; posters in police precincts and banks described her
as being involved in serious criminal activities; she was
highlighted on the FBI's most wanted list; and to police at all
levels she became a 'shoot-to-kill' target."

I was falsely accused in six different "criminal cases" and in all
six of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges were
dismissed. The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were
dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that
was certainly not the case. It only meant that the "evidence"
presented against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence
became evident. This political persecution was part and parcel of
the government's policy of eliminating political opponents by
charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the
factual basis of such charges.

On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli
were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a "faulty
tail light." Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we
were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper
then came to the car, opened the door and began to question us.
Because we were black, and riding in a car with Vermont license
plates, he claimed he became "suspicious." He then drew his gun,
pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up in the air, in
front of us, where he could see them. I complied and in a split
second, there was a sound that came from outside the car, there was
a sudden movement, and I was shot once with my arms held up in the
air, and then once again from the back.

Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Foerster was
killed, and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and
killed Zayd Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I
was charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest
friend and comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Forester.

Never in my life have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect
me, and to help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he
had lost his life, trying to protect both me and Sundiata. Although
he was also unarmed, and the gun that killed trooper Foerster was
found under Zayd's leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later, was
also charged with both deaths. Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever
received a fair trial We were both convicted in the news media way
before our trials.

No news media was ever permitted to interview us, although the New
Jersey police and the FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis.
In 1977, I was convicted by an all- white jury and sentenced to life
plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered
in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was
liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood
the depths of the injustices in my case, and who were also extremely
fearful for my life.

The U.S. Senate's 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence
operations inside the USA, revealed that "The FBI has attempted
covertly to influence the public's perception of persons and
organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press,
either anonymously or through "friendly" news contacts." This same
policy is evidently still very much in effect today.

On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference
to announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to
Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid
in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey
State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they
had probably totally distort the facts, and attempted to get the
Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to
write the Pope to inform him about the reality of' "justice" for
black people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States.
(See attached Letter to the Pope).

In January of 1998, during the pope's visit to Cuba, I agreed to do
an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the
Pope, about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the
changes I saw in the United States and it's treatment of Black
people in the last 25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I
saw this secret letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity
maneuver on the part of the New Jersey State Police, and as a
cynical attempt to manipulate Pope John Paul II.

I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was completely out of touch
with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of the establishment
media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years ago. After years
of being victimized by the "establishment" media it was naive of me
to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell "my side of
the story." Instead of an interview with me, what took place was
a "staged media event" in three parts, full of distortions,
inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the
facts. Not only did NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting
this "exclusive interview series" on NBC, they also spent a great
deal of money advertising this "exclusive interview" on black radio
stations and also placed notices in local newspapers.
DISTORTIONS AND LIES IN THE NBC SERIES

In an NBC interview Gov. Whitman was quoted as saying that "this has
nothing to do with race, this had everything to do with crime."
Either Gov. Whitman is completely unfamiliar with the facts in my
case, or her sensitivity to racism and to the plight of black people
and other people of color in the United States is at a sub-zero
level.

In 1973 the trial in Middlesex County had to be stopped because of
the overwhelming racism expressed in the jury room. The court was
finally forced to rule that the entire jury panel had been
contaminated by racist comments like "If she's black, she's guilty."
In an obvious effort to prevent us from being tried by "a jury of
our peers the New Jersey courts ordered that a jury be selected from
Morris County, New Jersey where only 2.2 percent of the population
was black and 97.5 percent of potential jurors were white.

In a study done in Morris County, one of the wealthiest counties in
the country, 92 percent of the registered voters said that they were
familiar with the case through the news media, and 72 percent
believed we were guilty based on pretrial publicity. During the jury
selection process in Morris County, white supremacists from the
National Social White People's Party, wearing Swastikas,
demonstrated carrying signs reading "SUPPORT WHITE POLICE." The
trial was later moved back to Middlesex County where 70 percent
thought I was guilty based on pretrial publicity I was tried by an
all-white jury, where the presumption of innocence was not the
criteria for jury selection. Potential jurors were merely asked if
they could "put their prejudices aside, and "render a fair verdict."

The basic reality in the United States is that being black is a
crime and black people are always "suspects" and an accusation is
usually a conviction. Most white people still think that being
a "black militant" or a "black revolutionary" is tantamount to being
guilty of some kind of crime. The current situation in New Jersey's
prisons, underlines the racism that dominates the politics of the
state of New Jersey, in particular and in the U.S. as a whole.
Although the population of New Jersey is approximately 78 percent
white, more than 75 percent of New Jersey's prison population is
made up of blacks and Latinos. 80 percent of the women in Jersey
prisons are people of color. That may not seem like racism to Gov.
Whitman, but it reeks of of racism to us.

The NBC story implied that Governor Christie Whitman raised the
reward for my capture based on my interview with NBC. The fact of
the matter is that she has been campaigning since she was elected
into office to double the reward for my capture. In 1994, she
appointed Col. Carl Williams who immediately vowed to make my
capture a priority. In 1995, Gov. Whitman sought to "match a $25,000
departmental appropriation sponsored by an "unidentified
legislator."

I watched a tape of Gov. Whitman's "testimony" in her interview with
NBC. She gave a very dramatic, exaggerated version of what happened,
but there is no evidence whatsoever to support her claim that
Trooper Foerster had "four bullets in him at least, and then they
got up and with his own gun, fired two bullets into his head." She
claimed that she was writing Janet Reno for federal assistance in my
capture, based on what she saw in the NBC interview. If this is the
kind of "information" that is being passed on to Janet Reno and the
Pope, it is clear that the facts have been totally distorted.

Whitman also claimed that my return to prison should be a condition
for "normalizing relations with Cuba". How did I get so important
that my life can determine the foreign relations between two
governments? Anybody who knows anything about New Jersey politics
can be certain that her motives are purely political. She, like
Torrecelli and several other opportunistic politicians in New Jersey
came to power, as part- time lobbyists for the Batistia faction -
soliciting votes from right wing Cubans. They want to use my case as
a barrier for normalizing relations with Cuba, and as a pretext for
maintaining the immoral blockade against the Cuban people.

In what can only be called deliberate deception and slander NBC
aired a photograph of a woman with a gun in her hand implying that
the woman in the photograph was me. I was not, in fact, the woman in
the photograph. The photograph was taken from a highly publicized
case where I was accused of bank robbery. Not only did I voluntarily
insist on participating in a lineup, during which witnesses selected
another woman, but during the trial, several witnesses, including
the manager of the bank, testified that the woman in that photograph
was not me.

I was acquitted of that bank robbery. NBC aired that photograph on
at least 5 different occasions, representing the woman in the
photograph as me. How is it possible, that the New Jersey State
Police, who claim to have a detective working full time on my case,
Governor of New Jersey Christine Whitman, who claimed she reviewed
all the "evidence," or NBC, which has an extensive research
department, did not know that the photograph was false? It was a
vile, fraudulent attempt to make me look guilty. NBC deliberately
misrepresented the truth.

Even after many people had called in, and there was massive fax, and
e-mail campaign protesting NBC's mutilation of the facts, Ralph
Penza and NBC continued to broadcast that photograph, representing
it as me. Not once have the New Jersey State Police, Governor
Christine Whitman, or NBC come forth and stated that I was not the
woman in the photograph, or that I had been acquitted of that charge.

Another major lie and distortion was that we had left trooper Werner
Foerster on the roadside to die. The truth is that there was a major
cover-up as to what happened on May 2, 1973. Trooper Harper, the
same man who shot me with my arms raised in the air, testified that
he returned to the State Police Headquarters which was less than 200
yards away, "To seek aid." However, tape recordings and police
reports made on May 2, 1973 prove that not only did Trooper Harper
give several conflicting statements about what happened on the
turnpike, but he never once mentioned the name of Werner Foerster,
or the fact that the incident took place right in front of the
Trooper Headquarters. In an effort to hide his tracks and cover his
guilt he said nothing whatsoever about Foerster to his superiors or
to his fellow officers.

In a clear attempt to discredit me, Col. Carl Williams of the New
Jersey State Police was allowed to give blow by blow distortions of
my interview. In my interview I stated that on the night of May 2,
1973 I was shot with my arms in the air, then shot again in the
back. Williams stated "that is absolutely false.

Our records show that she reached in her pocketbook, pulled out a
nine millimeter weapon and started firing." However, the claim that
I reached into my pocketbook and pulled out a gun, while inside the
car was even contested by trooper Harper. Although on three official
reports, and when he testified before the grand jury he stated that
he saw me take a gun out of my pocketbook, he finally admitted under
cross-examination that he never saw me with my hands in a
pocketbook, never saw me with a weapon inside the car, and that he
did not see me shoot him.

The truth is that I was examined by 3 medical specialists:

(1) A Neurologist who testified that I was immediately paralyzed
immediately after the being shot.

(2) A Surgeon who testified that "It was absolutely anatomically
necessary that both arms be in the air for Mrs. Chesimard to receive
the wounds." The same surgeon also testified that the claim by
Trooper Harper that I had been crouching in a firing position when I
was shot was "totally anatomically impossible."

(3) A Pathologist who testified that "There is no conceivable way
that it [the bullet] could have traveled over to hit the clavicle if
her arm was down." he said "It was impossible to have that
trajectory"

The prosecutors presented no medical testimony whatsoever to refute
the above medical evidence.

No evidence whatsoever was ever presented that I had a 9-millimeter
weapon, in fact New Jersey State Police testified that the 9-
millimeter weapon belonged to Zayd Malik Shakur based on a holster
fitting the weapon that they was recovered from his body.

There were no fingerprints, or any other evidence whatsoever that
linked me to any guns or ammunition.

The results of the Neutron Activation test to determine whether or
not I had fired a weapon were negative.

Although Col. Williams refers to us as the "criminal element"
neither Zayd, or Sundiata Acoli or I were criminals, we were
political activists. I was a college student until the police kicked
down my door in an effort to force me to "cooperate" with them and
Sundiata Acoli was a computer expert who had worked for NASA, before
he joined the Black Panther Party and was targeted by COINTELPRO.

In an obvious maneuver to provoke sympathy for the police, the NBC
series juxtaposed my interview with the weeping widow of Werner
Foerster. While I can sympathize with her grief, I believe that her
appearance was deliberately included to appeal to people's emotions,
to blur the facts, to make me look like a villain, and to create the
kind of lynch mob mentality that has historically been associated
with white women portrayed as victims of black people.

In essence the supposed interview with me became a forum for the New
State Police, Foerster's widow, and the obviously hostile commentary
of Ralph Penza. The two initial programs together lasted 3.5
minutes - me - 59 seconds, the widow 50 seconds, the state police 38
seconds, and Penza - 68 seconds. Not once in the interview was I
ever asked about Zayd, Sundiata or their families. As the interview
went on, it was painfully evident that Ralph Penza would never see
me as a human being. Although I tried to talk about racism and about
the victims of government and police repression, it was clear that
he was totally uninterested.

I have stated publicly on various occasions that I was ashamed of
participating in my trial in New Jersey trial because it was so
racist, but I did testify. Even though I was extremely limited by
the judge, as to what I could testfy about, I testified as clearly
as I could about what happened that night. After being almost
fatally wounded I managed to climb in the back seat of the car to
get away from the shooting. Sundiata drove the car five miles down
the road carried me into a grassy area because he was afraid that
the police would see the car parked on the side of the road and just
start shooting into it again.

Yes, it was five miles down the highway where I was captured,
dragged out of the car, stomped and then left on the ground.
Although I drifted in and out of consciousness I remember clearly
that both while I was lying on the ground, and while I was in the
ambulance, I kept hearing the State troopers ask "is she dead yet?"
Because of my condition I have no independent recollection of how
long I was on the ground, or how long it was before the ambulance
was allowed to leave for the hospital, but in the trial transcript
trooper Harper stated that it was while he was being questioned,
some time after 2:00 am that a detective told him that I had just
been brought into the hospital. I was the only live "suspect" in
custody, and prior to that time Harper, had never told anyone that a
woman had shot him.

As I watched Governor Whitman's interview the one thing that struck
me was her "outrage" at my joy about being a grandmother, and
my "quite nice life" as she put it here in Cuba. While I love the
Cuban people and the solidarity they have shown me, the pain of
being torn away from everybody I love has been intense. I have never
had the opportunity to see or to hold my grandchild.

If Gov. Whitman thinks that my life has been so nice, that 50 years
of dealing with racism, poverty, persecution, brutality, prison,
underground, exile and blatant lies has been so nice, then I'd be
more than happy to let her walk in my shoes for a while so she can
get a taste of how it feels. I am a proud black woman, and I'm not
about to get on the television and cry for Ralph Penza or any other
journalist, but the way I have suffered in my lifetime, and the way
my people have suffered, only god can bear witness to.

Col. Williams of the New Jersey State Police stated "we would do
everything we could go get her off the island of Cuba and if that
includes kidnaping, we would do it." I guess the theory is that if
they could kidnap millions of Africans from Africa 400 years ago,
they should be able to kidnap one African woman today. It is nothing
but an attempt to bring about the re-incarnation of the Fugitive
Slave Act. All I represent is just another slave that they want to
bring back to the plantation. Well, I might be a slave, but I will
go to my grave a rebellious slave. I am and I feel like a maroon
woman.

I will never voluntarily accept the condition of slavery, whether
it's de-facto or ipso-facto, official, or unofficial. In another
recent interview, Williams talked about asking the federal
government to add to the $50,000 reward for my capture. He also
talked about seeking "outside money, or something like that, a
benefactor, whatever." Now who is he looking to "contribute" to
that "cause"? The Ku Klux Klan, the Neo Nazi Parties, the white
militia organizations? But the plot gets even thicker. He says that
the money might lure bounty hunters. "There are individuals out
there, I guess they call themselves 'soldiers of fortune' who might
be interested in doing something, in turning her over to us" Well,
in the old days they used to call them slave-catchers, trackers, or
patter-rollers, now they are called mercenaries.

Neither the governor nor the state police say one word
about "justice." They have no moral authority to do so. The level of
their moral and ethical bankruptcy is evident in their eagerness to
not only break the law and hire hoodlums, all in the name of "law
and order." But you know what gets to me, what makes me truly
indignant? With the schools in Paterson, N.J. falling down, with
areas of Newark looking like a disaster area, with the crack
epidemic, with the wide-spread poverty and unemployment in New
Jersey, these depraved, decadent, would-be slave-masters want
federal funds to help put this "nigger wench" back in her place.

They call me the "most wanted woman" in Amerika. I find that ironic.
I've never felt very "wanted" before. When it came to jobs, I was
never the "most wanted," when it came to "economic opportunities I
was never the "most wanted, when it came to decent housing." It
seems like the only time Black people are on the "most wanted" list
is when they want to put us in prison.

But at this moment, I am not so concerned about myself. Everybody
has to die sometime, and all I want is to go with dignity. I am more
concerned about the growing poverty, the growing despair that is
rife in Amerika. I am more concerned about our younger generations,
who represent our future. I am more concerned that one-third of
young black are either in prison or under the jurisdiction of
the "criminal in-justice system." I am more concerned about the rise
of the prison-industrial complex that is turning our people into
slaves again.

I am more concerned about the repression, the police brutality,
violence, the rising wave of racism that makes up the political
landscape of the U.S. today. Our young people deserve a future, and
I consider it the mandate of my ancestors to be part of the struggle
to insure that they have one. They have the right to live free from
political repression. The U.S. is becoming more and more of a police
state and that fact compels us to fight against political
repression. I urge you all, every single person who reads this
statement, to fight to free all political prisoners. As the
concentration camps in the U.S. turn into death camps, I urge you to
fight to abolish the death penalty. I make a special, urgent appeal
to you to fight to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the only
political prisoner who is currently on death row.

It has been a long time since I have lived inside the United States.
But during my lifetime I have seen every prominent black leader,
politician or activist come under attack by the establishment media.
When African-Americans appear on news programs they are usually
talking about sports, entertainment or they are in handcuffs. When
we have a protest they ridicule it, minimized it, or cut the numbers
of the people who attended in half. The news is big business and it
is owned operated by affluent white men. Unfortunately, they shape
the way that many people see the world, and even the way people see
themselves.

Too often black journalists, and other journalists of color mimic
their white counterparts. They often gear their reports to reflect
the foreign policies and the domestic policies of the same people
who are oppressing their people. In the establishment media, the
bombing and of murder of thousands of innocent women and children in
Libya or Iraq or Panama is seen as "patriotic," while those who
fight for freedom, no matter where they are, are seen
as "radicals," "extremists," or "terrorists."

Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not
have a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real
freedom of speech, no real freedom of _expression and very little
freedom of the press. The black press and the progressive media has
historically played an essential role in the struggle for social
justice.

We need to continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create
media outlets that help to educate our people and our children, and
not annihilate their minds. I am only one woman. I own no TV
stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that people
need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand the
connection between the news media and the instruments of repression
in Amerika.

All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth.
But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of you
in the progressive media, those of you who believe in truth freedom,
To publish this statement and to let people know what is happening.
We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.

Free all Political Prisoners,
I send you Love and Revolutionary Greetings From Cuba, One of the
Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps)
That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.

Assata Shakur
Havana, Cuba

"HELL NAW!"

*Mike Tyson has reportedly come out swinging against rumors that he will star opposite porn star Jenna Jameson in an adult flick. Although he has expressed interest in pursuing a film career, the 38-year-old boxing retiree said his intention is to stay away from the XXX genre. "Mike will be appearing in various films but won't reveal all,” his spokesman announced.