Pandora’s box

By Manuel E. Yepe

A CubaNews translation / Edited by Walter Lippmann

An announcement calling for the capture of a black woman described as a “terrorist” was posted early this May by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) on the Internet website it usually uses to present its views on cases of terrorism.

The text read: “Wanted terrorist Joanne Chesimard (aka, Assata Shakur) for the death of a Police Officer,” and was signed by WWW.FBI.GOV 937-792-3000. It included the photo of a smiling, young black woman.

Shortly before, the FBI had used billboards in New Jersey to announce that the reward for collaboration leading to the capture of the woman had been doubled to 2 million dollars.

Those who had no background information on the subject could have thought that the wanted woman was a dangerous criminal hiding in a dark corner of New Jersey, ready to pounce on her next victim.

But, in fact, there was no reason at all for such paranoia. The wanted “terrorist” was a former militant of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense who, 40 years ago, was accused, judged and condemned in a manipulated trial for killing a police officer under circumstances that showed the helplessness of the U.S. black population at the time.

Assata Shakur was born in New York in 1947, and in the 60’s was a young militant activist in movements that struggled for the self-determination of the black population, the rights of students and an end to the war in Vietnam. In 1970 she joined the Black Panthers
Party, the FBI’s most persecuted organization at the time. She became the Panthers’ main leader in Harlem and coordinated its breakfast program for school children.

The event that brought about her police accusation left two dead (a police officer and a black activist) and two wounded (an activist presently serving a life sentence and activist Assata Shakur).

It began when the car where the activists were travelling was stopped for “having a defective tail light” and the police officer, realizing the driver and passengers were all black, pulled out his gun violently and started the gunfight that ended with the results described above.

Assata Shakur remained in prison for more than two years of police and prosecution processing, in an environment of hatred, prejudice and racism that even forced a change of venue because of the difficulties of obtaining an impartial jury willing to carry out their responsibility and to guarantee the safety of the accused. During that time she was also processed with six more false accusations that included murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, bank robbery and kidnapping. She was declared innocent on three of these accusations and the other three charges were dropped. This confirmed that it had all been part of a political persecution aimed at discrediting the accused whose freedom was being demanded by many social and professional organizations.

In 1977, the trial was resumed in the same county where the jury had been challenged before, despite the fact that there had been no changes in the conditions and circumstances. The jury included five new members, all white and related to, or close friends of, officials or officers of the state’s government.

She was sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, she managed to escape from the maximum-security prison in Hunterdon County and lived in hiding until 1984, when she escaped to Cuba where she requested political asylum and lives at present.

The suspicious and amazing thing about the present situation is that 35 years after this woman – who was then 30 years old – received an unfair sentence for very serious crimes, these have now been reconsidered to make the accused – now 65-years old – the first woman placed on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list.

The motives for this absurd situation could be many, but the fact that this happens just when the U.S. government, particularly its Secretary of State, was facing a decision on whether or not to maintain Cuba on the list of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism, points reason in that direction.

However, many persons in the U.S. fear this may open a Pandora’s box with consequences on other more complex grounds even for Washington, such as the history of the racial problem and its present relevance, with Obama in the presidential seat.