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The Fugitive<br>
Why has the FBI placed a million-dollar bounty on Assata Shakur?<br>
By Kathleen Cleaver<br>
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Twenty-eight years ago, in a highly disputed trial, an all-White jury
convicted former Black Panther Assata Shakur of the murder of a New
Jersey state trooper. In 1979, while serving a life sentence, she escaped
from prison and eventually resurfaced in Cuba, where she was granted
asylum and has lived ever since. But the U.S. government has continued to
pursue Shakur, regularly increasing the bounty on her head and
classifying her as a “domestic terrorist.” Last May the Justice
Department issued an unprecedented $1,000,000 bounty for the return of
Assata Shakur, 58, who continues to maintain her innocence. Kathleen
Cleaver, a law professor and former communications secretary for the
Black Panther Party, talks about why we all need to know about Assata,
and why she must live free:<br><br>
I was startled when I heard about the $1,000,000 bounty for the capture
of Assata Shakur. What triggered this renewed interest in Assata? Why
spend so much time and money to hunt her down when Osama bin Laden, head
of an international terrorist enterprise, remains at large?<br><br>
It turns out that FBI and New Jersey police officials revealed the
million-dollar bounty on May 2 of this year, the thirty-second
anniversary of the New Jersey Turnpike shootout in which State Trooper
Werner Foerster and Black Panther Zayd Shakur were killed. Sundiata Acoli
and Assata Shakur were arrested for the murders. Assata was severely
wounded, shot while her hands were up. She has always insisted—and expert
defense testimony from the trial bears it out—that she did not kill
anyone. But in separate trials, Sundiata and Assata were convicted of
murdering Werner Foerster.<br><br>
In 1979, while incarcerated for life in the Clinton Correctional Facility
for Women in New Jersey, Assata escaped. As the FBI circulated the wanted
poster that called for her arrest, all over the New YorkNew Jersey area
her supporters hung posters proclaiming “Assata Shakur is welcome here.”
Cuba gave her political asylum several years later on the grounds that
she had been subjected to political persecution and had never received a
fair trial.<br><br>
Apparently the million-dollar bounty has already been covertly offered by
police to a relative of Assata’s for assistance in kidnapping her from
Cuba. This bounty evokes the memory of those vicious slave catchers who
were paid to capture and torment our runaway slave ancestors and return
them dead or alive. This extraordinary bounty on the head of a Black
woman inevitably brings to mind Harriet Tubman, that Underground Railroad
“conductor” whose ability to organize escapes earned a $12,000 price on
her head from the state of Maryland. Outraged slave owners added
$40,000.<br><br>
Many freedom fighters I knew and loved, including Eldridge Cleaver, to
whom I was married, were arrested and imprisoned because of our
membership in the Black Panther Party. Our organization started in
response to the gruesome war in Vietnam and the racism and injustice here
that drenched our lives in violence. Demonstrations, riots, rampant
police brutality and political assassinations marked those years when I
witnessed thousands upon thousands of people arrested and hundreds
killed. Many turned into fugitives to save their own lives, including my
husband, whom I joined in Algeria in May 1969. That was around the same
time that Assata, then a bright New York City college student named
Joanne Chesimard, joined the Black Panthers.<br><br>
WE had a concrete ten-point program to end racial inequality. The Black
Panther Party demanded the power to determine our own destiny. We
insisted on decent housing, appropriate education, economic justice, an
immediate end to police brutality, and other rights our people had been
fighting for since slavery ended. We were not patient, we were not
passive, and we were willing to defend our principles with our lives.
Since Panthers couldn’t be bought off or scared off, the government made
the decision to kill us off.<br><br>
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