<html>
<body>
<font size=7><b>Hands Off Assata, <br>
</font><font size=3>Hand Over Posada!<br>
</font><font size=5>Demo<br>
</font><font size=3>Friday, June 3</font><font size=2>rd <br>
</font><font size=5>12 Noon<br>
</font><font size=3>Oakland Federal Building<br>
1301 Clay Street <br>
Downtown Oakland<br>
</font><font size=5>Educational Program<br>
</font><font size=3>With Clips from “Eyes of the Rainbow” and “Posada’s
Victims Families Demand Justice”<br>
</font><font size=5>6 PM<br>
</font><font size=3>Saturday, June 4</font><font size=2>th <br>
</font><font size=3>Oaklandish <br>
411 2nd St. (Near Jack London Square) <br>
Oakland<br>
Program Speaker </font><font size=5>Walter Turner <br>
</font><font size=3>Hands Off Assata Campaign and KPFA’s “Africa Today”
<br>
On May 2</font><font size=1>nd </font><font size=3>the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) put a $1 million bounty on the head of Assata Shakur
and placed her on the domestic terrorist list under the Patriot Act.
Assata is a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black
Liberation Army falsely accused of murdering a New Jersey State Trooper
on May 2</font><font size=1>nd</font><font size=3>, 1973. In 1979 Assata
escaped prison and was given political sanctuary in Cuba. The aim of the
FBI's attack on Assata is to eliminate the domestic resistance of the
Black Liberation movement, undermine the sovereignty of Cuba and
Venezuela and set the stage for the possible invasion of these two
nations. The FBI escalation at this time is also meant to divert
attention from Luis Posada Carriles, an anti-Cuban terrorist wanted by
Venezuela on charges of blowing up a Cuban airliner, who recently came to
the United States seeking political asylum. We must defend Assata, our
right to resist, and the sovereign rights of Cuba and Venezuela!<br><br>
</font><font size=1>Organized by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the
Jericho Amnesty Movement, Hands Off Assata Campaign, the Prisoners of
Consciousness Committee, the Black Radical Congress, the ANSWER-SF
Coalition, and the National Committee to Free the Cuban 5 . For more
information contact MXGM at (510) 220-1100 or MXGMOakland@hotmail.com.
Also visit
<a href="http://www.handsoffassata.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.handsoffassata.org</a>.<br>
<br>
</font><font size=5>Standing with Assata<br>
</font><font size=2>On May 2, 2005, the United States Justice Department
announced it was raising its bounty of $100,000 for the capture of Sister
Assata Shakur to $1,000,000. For over two decades, Sister Assata has been
living as a political exile in the Republic of Cuba. This is part of a
long campaign to capture or kill Sister Assata since her escape in 1979,
and part of the historical assault against the Black Liberation Movement.
<br><br>
</font><font size=3><i>Who is Assata Shakur?<br><br>
</i>Assata Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Byron in July 16, 1947, in
Wilmington, North Carolina, grew up in the segregated South. When she was
a college student in New York she decided to participate in the freedom
movement of people of African descent against racism and white supremacy.
Her thirst to do something for her people led her to the Black Panther
Party (BPP) in New York City. She participated in a program teaching
Black youth their culture and history and other service programs of the
BPP. In 1969, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director J. Edgar
Hoover labeled the BPP “the greatest threat to the internal security of
the country.” Through its counter-intelligence program, COINTELPRO, the
FBI and other police agencies waged a low-intensity war on the BPP and
other Black freedom organizations. Activists were assassinated,
incarcerated and forced into exile. When New York Panthers came under
attack Assata went into hiding and joined the underground movement called
the Black Liberation Army (BLA). She became one of the major targets of
the United States government. On May 2, 1973, Assata and two other
Panthers forced underground, Zayd Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were stopped
by New Jersey Highway patrolmen on the New Jersey Turnpike. At the stop a
shoot out ensued and Zayd Shakur and one of the highway patrolmen, Werner
Foerster, were killed. In spite of that fact she had not fired a weapon
and was paralyzed through the entire gun battle, she was convicted by an
all-white jury in Middlesex County, New Jersey and sentenced to life plus
sixty-five years for the death of Zayd Shakur and the highway patrolman.
Sundiata was also convicted and given a sentence of life plus sixty-five
years. After years of being incarcerated in male facilities or prison
units on November 2, 1979, Assata, with the aid of the BLA and white
friends of the Black Liberation Movement, was liberated from prison. In
1984, she was given political asylum in Cuba. The recent bounty placed on
her head is only a continuation of a pursuit to re-capture her for over
two decades. Since her escape twenty-six years ago, the FBI has committed
an agent to her re-capture. The placing of Assata on the domestic
terrorist list only confirms the fears of the Black liberation movement
and human rights activists concerning George Bush's “war on terrorism.”
“The war on terrorism” is a means for the right-wing in the United States
to eliminate its political enemies. Through vehicles like the Patriot
Act, the “war on terrorism” gives justification for abuses of a modern
day COINTELPRO. <br><br>
<i>COINTELPRO and the War on the Black Freedom movement<br><br>
</i>In the 1950s, during the Cold war, the FBI started COINTELPRO. As the
Civil Rights Movement gained momentum Black Activists, like Martin Luther
King, Jr., Robert F. Williams, Ella Baker, and Bayard Rustin became the
primary targets of COINTELPRO. When the federal government did not
respond to the demands of the nonviolent movement and also did not
protect activists and Black communities from the violence of
segregationist many activists moved toward Black Power and armed
resistance to get human rights and freedom. Fearful of the assertive
Black Power movement, the United States government used programs like
COINTELPRO to destroy the Black movement. <br><br>
Instead of seeking reconciliation of political conflict, the attempt to
re-capture Assata only exacerbates political and racial conflict in the
United States and internationally. In other countries around the world,
including South Africa, Turkey, Morocco, Ukraine, Peru, Sierra Leone,
East Timor, Ghana, Belgium, governments have established a review of the
abuses of their police agencies on opposition movements in their
countries as a gesture towards reconciliation. The United States has
never sought reconciliation with the targets of COINTELPRO. The pursuit
of Assata promotes more conflict in that rather than choosing an
alternative dispute mechanism it chooses to continue the criminalization
of the Black Liberation movement. Moreover, it encourages the mercenary
invasion of a sovereign nation, the Republic of Cuba, and encourages
global conflict. We oppose the sending of mercenaries and bounty hunters
to apprehend Sister Assata Shakur. The United States government must
acknowledge its abuses and grant amnesty to political prisoners and
exiles.<br><br>
As supporters of Human rights, we call for:<br><br>
1) The end of the pursuit of Assata Shakur by immediately removing her
name from the domestic terrorist list and repealing the bounty placed on
her head.<br>
2) The rejection of mercenary attacks on the sovereign nation of
Cuba<br>
3) The de-criminalization of the Black Liberation movement, particularly
given the political nature of the conflict of the 1960s and 70s, and the
abuses of COINTELPRO.<br>
4) Congress to impanel an independent Truth Commission as an alternative
dispute mechanism, to finish the mission of the Church Committee and of
the cases of political prisoners and exiles, including Assata Shakur,
Sundiata Acoli, Mutulu Shakur, Sekou Odinga, Kamau Sadiki and Marilyn
Buck.<br>
5) That the United States Congress implement remedies and restitution for
the communities, organizations and individuals who were targeted and
whose human rights were violated due to COINTELPRO.<br>
6) The repeal of the Patriot Act. <br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></b> </font></body>
</html>