[Ppnews] Statement from Assata Shakur

[Political Prisoner News]

Statement from Assata Shakur
3/31/2008 6:29:06 AM by Assata Shakur

First of all, let me say thank you, to the many 
people who have helped me to celebrate my 60th 
birthday. Thank you for your beautiful birthday 
cards and for your warm and eloquent messages. 
Thank you for your activism, your radiant energy 
and most of all for your love. I am sincerely 
grateful for your support and for your commitment 
to social justice, truth and freedom.

It is somehow surprising for me to realize that I 
have lived on this planet for 60 years. I never 
imagined that I would live this long. Some of 
those years were very hard years, other years 
were happier, but I have never forgotten who I am 
or where I came from. For as long as I can 
remember, I was acutely aware of my oppression 
and of the oppression of my people.

In some ways it was easier for my generation. 
Racism was blatant and obvious. The "Whites Only" 
signs let us know clearly, what we were up 
against. Not much has changed, but the system of 
lies and tricknology is much more sophisticated. 
Today young people have to be highly informed and 
acutely analytical, or they will be swept up into 
a whirlpool of lies and deception.

Freedom, justice and liberty are words that are 
thrown around a lot in the United States, but for 
most of us, it is empty rhetoric. With each and 
every passing day the country becomes more 
repressive, the police more viciously aggressive 
and the so-called constitutional guarantees 
obliterated by scare tactics. The so-called 
’Conservatives’ are only interested in conserving 
their privileges and power and helping their rich 
friends to become richer. Black ’Conservatives’ 
serve their "masters" and are basically 
interested in grinning, shuffling and ’Uncle 
Tomming’ all the way to the bank. This is the 
most corrupt administration that has ever 
existed. They have blatantly stolen not millions, 
but billions of dollars. They are actively 
seeking to preserve the old colonial order with a 
new face, where the oppressed people of Asia, 
Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are 
expected to suffer happily, and sing praises to 
imperialism to the tune of the star spangled banner.

It is extreme arrogance to attack and occupy a 
country and expect its people to rejoice and lick 
your feet. Not even Roman Emperors were involved 
in such misguided conceit. The U.S. government 
has no right whatsoever, to force its 
undemocratic "democracy" on the rest of the 
world. I am 60 years old and I cannot remember a 
time when my people ever experienced true 
democracy. It is still the active policy of the 
U.S. government to use a wide variety of tactics 
to prevent poor people and people of color from 
voting. And when we do get to vote, our votes 
usually do not count. For the most part, there 
are no decent candidates to vote for, because the 
U.S, government is a "dollarocracy" where 
candidates have to beg and pander to the corporate rich in order to be elected.

I am 60 years old, and I have never in my life 
seen such widespread violence and cruelty. The 
U.S. government has more people in prison than 
any other country in the world, and it is now 
actively involved in creating prisons all over 
the world. Abu Gharib is only the tip of the 
iceberg. People all over the world are being 
imprisoned in secret prisons, with no formal 
charges being made against them. They are 
imprisoned under the most inhumane conditions, 
and detained for indeterminate periods of time, 
with no rights, no trials, and no justice 
whatsoever. In short, the leaders of this country 
are war criminals. All the U.S. government has to 
do is call them terrorists or extremists, enemy 
combatants or whatever and they can do anything 
they want to these people. I live in Cuba, and 
the Cuban people watch horrified, as the U.S. 
Army illegally occupies their land in Guantanamo 
and commits unspeakable acts of torture on their 
soil, in the name of "freedom." The U.S. 
government not only destroys the lives of people 
around the world, many mothers have cried because 
many of our young people have had their lives 
destroyed as well. I believe that this earth was 
meant for tenderness and not terror. The 
imperialist countries not only implement 
terrorist policies in the Third World, their 
actions also provoke terrorist activities and 
internal disputes between people. I believe that 
when Western governments learn to respect the 
sovereignty of Third world governments, and to 
offer solidarity and support rather that 
imperialist policies and exploitation, most of 
the world’s problems will be close to being solved.

Inside the belly of the beast, conditions are 
also disastrous. Most of the victims of Katrina 
are still waiting for decent housing and public 
services. Schools and hospitals around the 
country are either deteriorating or closing down. 
Around the country social programs to help poor 
and working people are mostly a thing of the 
past. Our young people are being marginalized, 
criminalized and brutalized. It is often an act 
of courage to go to school, or simply drive down 
the street. The U.S. government’s occupation of 
Afghanistan has produced a record increase of 
heroin production, and the "war on drugs" 
continues to be a war on poor people and people 
of color. The police brutality in our communities 
is not a simple matter of randomly "bad" cops. 
This government is more repressive than ever and 
more and more of a police state. When you have a 
trigger happy president, a trigger happy 
vice-president, a trigger happy office of 
homeland security, you are bound to have an 
increase of trigger happy police and many of our 
young people are bound to end up dead or 
imprisoned. The social policies of the United 
States have deteriorated from so-called benign 
neglect to malignant hostility or indifference.

The role the press and the media have played in 
all this has been increasingly malignant. There 
is no such thing as a free press in the United 
States. Journalists receive big salaries for 
telling "official" lies. The media both knowingly 
and naively became the vehicle for misinforming 
the people of the United States and convincing 
the people that it was "necessary" to go to war. 
Their "reporting" was based on outright lies. Now 
they "embedded" in the military, continuing to 
misinform the people, and distort the truth.

I am 60 years old and I am proud to be one of 
those people who stood up against the ruthless, 
evil, imperialist policies of the U.S. 
government. In my lifetime I have opposed the war 
against the Vietnamese people, the illegal 
contras – war in Nicaragua, the illegal coup in 
Chile, the invasion of Haiti and of Grenada, and 
every other illegal, immoral and genocidal war 
the U.S. government has ever waged. I have never 
been a criminal and I never will be one. I am 60 
years old and in spite of government repression, 
in spite of the media’s lies and distortions, in 
spite of the U.S, government’s COINTELPRO Program 
to criminalize and demonize political opponents, 
I feel proud to count myself as someone who 
believes in peace and believes in freedom. I am 
proud to have been a member of the Black Panther 
Party although the U.S. government continues try 
to distort history and continues to persecute 
ex-members of the Black Panther Party. Just 
recently, the U.S. government has indicted and 
arrested 8 ex-Black Panthers in a case that was 
dismissed 30 years ago. The case was dismissed 
some 30 years ago when it became obvious that the 
most vicious forms of extreme torture were used 
to extract false confessions from some of the so-called defendants.

I am 60 years and it is doubtful that I will ever 
live to see my people free of oppression and 
repression. But I am totally convinced that our 
collective dream of freedom will some day be 
realized. I sincerely implore young people to 
develop their minds, to develop their skills, to 
expand their states of consciousness, and sharpen 
their abilities to analyze reality. Those 
Africans who conspired with the European slave 
trade to sell us into slavery were seduced by 
trinkets. I hope and pray that our young people 
will not continue to fall into the same traps. I 
have always loved my people and always loved our 
culture. The culture of my people has always been 
rich and always been filled with the seeds of 
resistance. I hope that young people hold fast to 
that tradition. I sincerely hope that all young 
people will have the courage and the wisdom to 
hold on tight to their humanity and their 
historical mission. Most people in the Americas, 
were either indigenous people whose ancestors 
were victims of genocide, or brought to this 
hemisphere as slaves, or came to this continent 
seeking freedom. I believe that it is our 
collective duty to make freedom a reality. I 
truly believe that it is possible to end 
oppression and repression on this planet. If we 
all see ourselves as citizens of this planet, and 
citizens of the world, it will be easier for us 
to save this planet and recognize the human 
rights of human beings around the world.



Much love, Much Solidarity,

May we all make freedom a reality,

Assata Shakur



Learn more of Assata Shakur, aka JoAnne Chesimard 
at <http://www.assatashakur.org/>http://www.assatashakur.org




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