[MKE - Indymedia] Fwd: [Milwaukee IWW] HANDS OFF ASSATA - HAND OVER POSSADA

[Modemand Guitar]

------- Start of forwarded message -------
From: Jenny Peshut 
Date: 5/16/2005 11:54:59 AM



  Date:   Mon, 16 May 2005 11:54:59 -0700 (PDT)

  From:   Jenny Peshut <jennypeshut at yahoo.com>
  To:     milwaukee at iww.org, skoll at uwm.edu
  Cc:
  Subject:[Milwaukee IWW] HANDS OFF ASSATA - HAND OVER POSSADA



  HANDS OFF ASSATA CAMPAIGN


  OFFICIAL STATEMENT IN RESPONSE
  TO MAY 2, 2005 ANNOUNCEMENT OF
  $1 MILLION BOUNTY OFFER
  FOR THE RETURN OF ASSATA SHAKUR
  AND LISTING HER AS A DOMESTIC TERRORIST


  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.

  For years the New Jersey Troopers have held an annual
  commemoration ceremony for Trooper Werner Foerster in early
  May. Each year the local New Jersey papers print several
  stories about the events of May 2, 1973 that took place on
  the New Jersey Turnpike. Periodically various New Jersey
  officials have issued different statements sometimes
  accusing Assata and at other times accusing her
  co-defendant, Sundiata Acoli, of killing Foerster. Sundiata
  at age 68 continues to languish in prison 32 years later,
  having been denied parole repeatedly.

  Assata Shakur is a mother and grandmother, author and
  artist. She is politically astute and intellectually sharp.
  She is warm, humble and spiritual. Years ago, the FBI
  labeled Assata "the heart and soul of the Black Liberation
  Army". They issued all sorts of defamatory statements about
  her. As a result she was hunted like an animal by law
  enforcement agencies all over the country, as were many
  other Black Panther Party and BLA members. She has been
  used by the FBI as a symbol in various ways to further
  their political objectives.

  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.

  Former New Jersey Governor, Christie Todd Whitman, curried
  political favor with the state's police when she announced
  a bounty of $25,000 for Assata and later doubled it to
  $50,000. She was duly rewarded by President Bush who
  appointed her in 2001 to be the head of the Environmental
  Protection Agency. The bounty was quietly increased by the
  FBI to a million dollars as it crept around the country
  looking for relatives, friends and associates to enlist in
  its scheme to kidnap Assata and return her to the United
  States. Time and time again, the FBI o! ffered them a million
  dollars for their services. To some, they stated that there
  was no limit to how much they would pay for Assata's
  return.

  The obsession shared by the New Jersey State Troopers and
  the FBI for Assata is highly unusual unless you examine the
  larger political picture and international affairs. Since
  the victorious Cuban Revolution in 1959, the United States
  has engaged in an ongoing campaign to assassinate President
  Castro and overthrow the Cuban government. No fewer than 23
  assassination attempts have been documented. Then in 1961
  the failed Bay of Pigs attempt by President John F. Kennedy
  to invade and overthrow President Castro brought
  international embarrassment to the United States. The Bay
  of Pigs debacle was one of many government attempts to bow
  to the wishes of the powerful Miami based Cuban exile
  community. This is the same power base that Florida
  Governor Jeb Bush answers to and his brother, George! W., is
  beholden to for the 2000 and 2004 "election" results.

  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 lo! st 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 summi! t 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." To
  many the revelation that Posada is in the country is
  shocking. But they were apparently unaware that his
  co-conspirator, Orlando Bosch, has been living comfortably
  in Miami for at least the past two years. The revelation of
  Posada's presence in the United States set off a tidal wave
  of international and domestic criticism including
  accusations of political hypocrisy. President Castro called
  on President Bush to return Posada to Venezuela. Many
  demanded that the United States not allow Posada to remain
  in the country.

  But the role of Bosch and Posada as terrorists is
  indisputable. They plotted, murdered, bombed innocents and
  bragged about it. So what could Bush do? He tried denying
  that Posada was in the country but Posada's lawyer had
  already said that he was. Things went from the sublime to
  the ridiculous. Roger Noriega, the top State Department
  official for Western Hemisphere affairs, claimed he didn't
  know if Posada was in the United States. That revelation
  didn't impress many people.

  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 comment! s 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 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 th! e 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 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 in the killing of law enforcement officers
  between 1993 and 2002. Should we expect that the next
  political announcement will be that those 785 individuals
  have also been placed on the domestic terrorism list? Is
  murder of a police officer the criteria? If so, then should
  we expect the list to increase by at least 785?

  Perhaps, the commission of a heinous act makes one a
  terrorist. That would certainly get Bosch and Posada on the
  list, so it can't be that. What about 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? Will they 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 11people including 5
  children, and resulted in the
  destruction of the entire neighborhood, including 62 homes,
  was that an act of terrorism?

  Can 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. Will the names of the
  convicted abortion clinic bombers be added to the list?
  Were the officers who beat, assaulted and sodomized young
  Abner Louima terrorists? What about the soldiers who shot
  unarmed detainees in Guantanamo?

  In this political era we find the terrorism label abused
  and manipulated. It is an outrage that this government
  would offend the sensitivities of the American public by
  labeling Assata as 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 vio! lent 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.

  The convergence of Posada's entry into the United States
  and the otherwise inexplicable labeling of Assata as a
  terrorist fit well into a much broader politically
  motivated scheme.

  Her name must immediately be removed from the list
  and the bounty offer rescinded.


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e&p ati zine since 1988
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[ insert poem here ]

Roses are red;
Violets are not.

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