A Most Wanted Terrorist after 40 years

Lennox Hinds talking:

My view on this is that this is a disingenuous act on the part of—driven by the state of New Jersey and particularly the state police. As you know, for decades, the state police have wanted and demanded that the Cuban government extradite Assata Shakur to the United States. There is no extradition policy between Cuba and the United States. Just to deal with this in context, the Cuban government, pursuant to international law—that is, particularly the refugee convention—have granted Assata Shakur political asylum. Now, what is the basis for that? It is if an individual has a well-grounded fear that if they return to the country from which they left, they would either be persecuted or prosecuted based upon their political beliefs or/and their race or religion. Now, this is not a new concept. There have been numerous individuals who have left the United States and went to foreign countries, allies of the United States, where those countries have refused to extradite them. France, for example, in the 1970s, there were Black Panthers who hijacked planes and went to France. Now, both France and the United States have extradition treaties. Not only that, France signed the 1963 Tokyo Convention, the 1970 Hague Convention and the 1973 Montreal Convention, with the United States. All of these are international agreements that require countries, host countries, that are holding individuals—who have hijacked planes—to extradite them or try them. France, after conducting their own independent review of these Black Panthers, refused to extradite them to the United States based upon France’s assessment that if they would be returned, they would be subject to political and racial repression. So, I say that the Cubans’ position is well grounded in international law.

Now, why today is Assata Shakur now being branded a terrorist? If we look at the definition of terrorism, what is it? It is the use or the threat of use of force against a civilian population to achieve political ends. What happened in the case of Assata Shakur? You have heard, in her own words, this woman was a political activist. She was targeted by whom? J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI in a program that was called COINTELPRO. That program was unveiled by whom? Frank Church, Senator Frank Church, in the 1970s. He chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee. That committee determined that the FBI was using both legal, but mostly illegal, methods—to do what? In the FBI’s own words, they wanted to discredit, to stop the rise of a black messiah—that was the fear of the FBI—so that there would not be a Mau Mau, in their words, uprising in the United States. And they were, of course, referring to the liberation movement that occurred in Kenya, Africa. Now, the FBI carried out a campaign targeting not only the Black Panther Party. They targeted SCLC. They targeted Martin Luther King. They targeted Harry Belafonte. They targeted Eartha Kitt. They targeted anyone who supported the struggle for civil rights, that they considered to be dangerous.

It is in that context we need to look at what happened on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. What they call Joanne Chesimard, what we know as Assata Shakur, she was targeted by the FBI, stopped. And the allegation that she was a cold-blooded killer is not supported by any of the forensic evidence. If we look at the trial, we’ll find that she was victimized, she was shot. She was shot in the back. The bullet exited and broke the clavicle in her shoulder. She could not raise a gun. She could not raise her hand to shoot. And she was shot while her hands were in the air. Now, that is the forensic evidence. There is not one scintilla of evidence placing a gun in her hand. No arsenic residue was found on her clothing or on her hands. So, the allegation by the state police that she took an officer’s gun and shot him, executed him in cold blood, is not only false, but it is designed to inflame.

40 years later suddenly branding her a terrorist and also insisting that she is a threat to the United States government at this time, could you talk about the significance of that declaration.

I believe that we have to look at it in the context of what has just happened in Boston. I think that with the massacre that occurred there, the FBI and the state police are attempting to inflame the public opinion to characterize her as a terrorist, because the acts that she was convicted of has nothing to do with terrorism. The acts that she was convicted of, if you look at the evidence, she was convicted of aiding and abetting, and therefore was present during the shootout. The FBI and the state police’s theory was that Sundiata Acoli shot Officer Foerster. That was their theory during his trial.

FBI press release, On May 2, 1973, Chesimard and a pair of accomplices were stopped by two troopers for a motor vehicle violation on the New Jersey Turnpike. At the time, Chesimard—a member of the violent revolutionary activist organization known as the Black Liberation Army—was wanted for her involvement in several felonies, including bank robbery.

“Chesimard and her accomplices opened fire on the troopers. One officer was wounded, and his partner—Trooper Foerster—was shot and killed at point-blank range. One of Chesimard’s accomplices was killed in the shoot-out and the other was arrested and remains in jail.

“Chesimard fled but was apprehended.”

Also in their statement that I read, the superintendent of state police claimed that Assata Shakur took the Officer Foerster’s weapon and shot him while he was on the ground. There is not one scintilla of evidence at the trial attesting to that. In fact, as I was saying before, she was incapable of lifting her hands, much less firing a weapon.

Now, you asked what is the reason for this allegation at this time. We have to remember that 10 years ago, a little over 10 years ago, the then-governor of the state of New Jersey, former Governor Christie Todd Whitman, she had issued and posted a $1 million bounty for Assata Shakur. Today it has been doubled. But we believe that putting Ms. Chesimard, putting Assata Shakur on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list is designed to inflame the public and to characterize her as a terrorist, when none of the acts alleged relates to terrorism. In fact, of all of the charges that have been leveled against her in New York, case after case, she was acquitted, or the charges were dismissed. There was insufficient evidence to support any of the charges.

in 1971, armed robbery case was dismissed; 1971, she was acquitted of bank robbery; 1972, hung jury; 1972, kidnap of drug dealer, acquitted; and then several other cases dismissed.

Angela Davis talking:

it was a major shock to hear that Assata Shakur has become the first woman to be added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list and then to learn that they’re adding another million dollars to the reward, the bounty. Really, it seems to me that this act incorporates or reflects the very logic of terrorism. I can’t help but think that it’s designed to frighten people who are involved in struggles today. Forty years ago seems as if it were a long time ago, four decades; however, in the 21st century, at the beginning of the 21st century, we’re still fighting around the very same issues—police violence, healthcare, education, people in prison, and so forth. So I see this as an attack not so much on Assata herself, although of course she deserves to be brought home. She deserves to be able to live out her life, and with justice and peace. It was wonderful that you allowed people, through this program, to hear Assata’s words, because, 40 years later, people really don’t know the details of the case and are not aware of the extent to which she was targeted by the FBI by the COINTEL Program, as Lennox pointed out. And it’s amazing that in 2013, where she is living in Cuba as a political refugee, having given—having been given political asylum by Cuba, she is still pursued. And actually, this is an invitation for anyone to travel to Cuba illegally and to kidnap her and bring her back to the United States, if not shoot her dead. This is—as I said, was an extremely shocking revelation.

there’s always this slippage between what should be protected free speech—that is to say, the advocacy of revolution, the advocacy of radical change—and what the FBI represents as terrorism. You know, certainly, Assata continues to advocate radical transformation of this country, as many of us do. You know, I continue to say that we need revolutionary change. This is why it seems to me that the attack on her reflects the logic of terrorism, because it precisely is designed to frighten young people, especially today, who would be involved in the kind of radical activism that might lead to change.

But you’re absolutely right, Assata is not a threat. If anything, this is a—this is a vendetta. She is innocent, and many of us have looked at the evidence. And as Lennox pointed out, there’s no way that she could have possibly been the person who killed Foerster, because she had her hands up and was shot in the back with her hands in the air and could not have used a gun at that time. And so, to represent her as a person who continues to be a threat to the U.S. government in the way that is described is, it seems to me, an effort to strike fear in the hearts of young people who would be active in the struggles that are represented historically by Assata and struggles that continue today. Struggles against police violence, for example, continue. The fact—consider the fact that so many people have been killed by the police in recent years. And I’m thinking about Kimani Gray in New York. I’m thinking about Alan Blueford in Oakland, of course Oscar Grant in Oakland. I’m thinking about—there’s some 63 people who were killed last year in Chicago by the Chicago police.

Lennox Hinds talking:

It is an open invitation, not only with respect to the United States government, but for anyone, in Cuba or elsewhere, to become a vigilante, to go there and to not only apprehend and bring her back, or to kill her. So it’s an open invitation. And, you know, when we—Cuba is accused of harboring terrorists. And when we look at the role of the United States and the United States government vis-à-vis Cuba, the United States government and the CIA have encouraged, trained, sent individuals to not only disrupt the Cuban economy by killing tourists, placing bombs in restaurants and hotels, but to assassinate Fidel Castro, and individuals who admitted that they were involved in the downing of a Cuban airliner in 1973. I’m talking about Posada Carriles. Here was a man who made the open admission, trained by the CIA, harbored by the United States. When he was found in the United States, did the United States prosecute him for those crimes? No. They, on a pretext, prosecuted him for lying to the FBI, all right? and acquitted him of that.

Illusions of Justice. There is the illusion that we have justice in the United States. I made the mistake of thinking that lawyers enjoyed a First Amendment right, and I called a press conference, and I criticized the trial judge at the trial and said that the case was a legalized lynching. And before you know it, I was facing disbarment. They attempted to disbar me by bringing charges against me. And they asked me to come and explain myself. I refused. I sued the judge. I sued the prosecutor. And I sued all of the members of the Ethics Committee, forced them to come to my office. I took their depositions. And the case went all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. United States Supreme Court said, “Well, Hinds could not have understood the seriousness of the charges; otherwise, he would not have made that sort of statement.” They sent the case back to New Jersey. The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed and tossed it out. I’m still a lawyer today.

“It had been and is my view that it was the racism in Middlesex County, fueled by biased, inflammatory publicity in the local press before and throughout the trial, fanned by the documented government lawlessness, that made it possible for the white jury to convict Assata on the uncorroborated, contradictory, and generally incredible testimony of trooper Harper, the only other witness to the events on the turnpike.”

no fingerprints on any weapon. They claim that she fired a weapon. There were no arsenic powder marks or residue on her clothing or on her hands, etc. No forensic evidence.

she was convicted. And it was an all-white jury. The pretrial publicity was such that people in Middlesex County and people from the northern part of New Jersey believed then, and believe now, that she is guilty. The mere fact that she was in the car meant that she was guilty. And in fact, the instructions to the jury—because there was no evidence of her doing any shooting, the instructions to the jury was that if you find that she was present and supported the action of the people who did the shooting, she can be found guilty as a principal. And that is under the felony murder rule.

Angela Davis talking:

And I find it really interesting that the FBI decided to focus quite specifically on black women, because somehow they feared, it seems to me, that the movement would continue to grow and develop, particularly with the leadership and the involvement of black women. I was rendered a target, an ideological target, in the same way that Assata Shakur was called the “mother hen” of the Black Liberation Army. The way in which she was represented became an invitation for racists and everyone who assented to the repressive behavior of the U.S. government to focus very specifically on her, to focus their hate, to focus vendettas on her. And I really find it surprising that when the grandchildren of those who were active in the late ’60s and early ’70s are becoming involved in similar movements today, there is this effort to again terrorize young people by representing such an important figure as Assata Shakur as a terrorist.

And let me say that I was quite surprised that in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, where, before the Tsarnaev brothers were discovered to be the alleged perpetrators, there was an attempt to represent the person who planted the bombs as either a black man or a dark-skin man with a hoodie, I believe—this racialization of what is represented as terrorism is an attempt to bring the old-style racism into conversation with modes of repression in the 21st century.

And there’s one other point that I would like to make. And that is that at the same time that Assata Shakur is being designated the first woman ever on the 10 Most Wanted Terrorists list, the Cuban Five, Cuban citizens who attempted to prevent terrorist attacks on Cuba, continue to be held in prison in the United States.

Lennox Hinds talking:

There were literally hundreds of victims of the FBI COINTELPRO program. These are individuals who were killed, assassinated. The instructions that were given by the FBI to not only their field agents, but also to the local police, it was essentially shoot on sight. And the case of Fred Hampton was a clear case where the—again, the investigations that were conducted showed that of the dozens of bullets that were fired, at least 40 bullets that were fired, only one, if that many, were fired by the Panthers who were in the house.

Fred Hampton was the head of the Black Panther Party in Chicago. He in bed, he and Mark Clark killed on December 4th, 1969.

They were killed. Fred Hampton was in bed, and he was shot while lying in bed. And so, again, the victims of the Counter Intelligence Program were individuals who were not only falsely accused, falsely arrested, but many of them were assassinated.

There is no way to appeal someone being put on the terrorists list. This is a political act, and this is an act that has been done by—being pushed by the state of New Jersey by some members of Congress from Miami, and with the intent of putting pressure on the Cuban government and to inflame public opinion.

– — source democracynow.org

Angela Davis, author, activist and professor at University of California, Santa Cruz.

Lennox Hinds, Assata Shakur’s attorney. He has represented her since 1973. He is a professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University.