Another Corporate Media Attack on Assata Shakur by Michelle Maskaly and FOXNews.com

[XXPANTHAXX]

Uhuru Comrades

What appears on the surface to be another axe job by the racist corporate media, fox news is being manipulated by us this time, for we were clear on their intentions and we knew they were going to put out verbatim whatever they planned on publishing even after they were repeatedly pointed to The Statement Of The Facts.

For obvious reasons they refused to add that link, we are elated they linked to us using the main page from http://www.assatashakur.org which we promptly changed to The Statement Of The Facts by Mama Evelyn Williams, Assata's Auntie and Appeals attorney this one act allowed tens of thousands so far to read The Statement Of The Facts with very little effort on our part, thanks in part to FOXNews.com and their sloppy journalist Michelle Maskaly.

This is a classic case of "putting the enemy to work" we must always stay ten steps ahead of these pigs, for they will always twist your words as they did mine in this article, but that should never bother anyone when its about Mama Assata Shakur's or anyone's Innocence.

In Struggle...

http://www.assatashakur.org

PS Special shout out to Elisa Keisha and Sourakhata for the outstanding Spanish and French Translations

http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/pa...ta-shakur.html

http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/po...kur-au-nj.html

http://www.sundiataacoli.org

http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/bla.html

http://www.eyesoftherainbow.com/
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WANTED: Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard Remains Out of Reach in Cuba

Wednesday, October 08, 2008
By Michelle Maskaly

This is a weekly series that profiles America's most wanted criminals.

To a few die-hard militants, Joanne Deborah Chesimard — aka Assata
Shakur — is a courageous victim of a vast government conspiracy, a
modern-day Harriet Tubman fighting for the rights of African-Americans.

But to American law enforcement, the 61-year-old New York City native is
a cowardly, dangerous, cold-blooded cop killer who has been living
openly and defiantly for nearly a quarter of a century in Cuba.

Chesimard, a member of the radical Black Liberation Army, has a
prominent place on the FBI's Most Wanted list for the May 2, 1973,
murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster.

But unlike most of the criminals on the FBI's list, authorities know
exactly where she is — a point that has frustrated law enforcement for
more than three decades.

"Ultimately, Cuba doesn't honor the extradition that has been in place
since 1940," said Lt. Kevin Tormey, chief detective on the Chesimard
case for the New Jersey State Police and a member of the FBI's Joint
Terrorism Task Force in Newark, N.J. "When Castro's administration came
to power, they no longer honored it."

Chesimard, who is the godmother of slain hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur,
has been heralded as a hero among some in the hip-hop community and
political activist groups.

On her Web site, Assata Shakur Speaks! , Chesimard claims she is
innocent.

"I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S.
government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not
a criminal, nor have I ever been one," she says.

But authorities see things differently, and point to Foerster, the New
Jersey state trooper who went to work on May 2, 1973, and never came
home to his wife and kids.

Foerster and fellow trooper James Harper pulled Chesimard and two others
over for a routine traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike about an hour
south of New York City, unaware that the three were carrying
semi-automatic handguns and fake identification.

Chesimard, 26 at the time, was already known by the FBI for her
involvement in the Black Panther movement. She had changed her name to
Shakur and was now a leader of the Black Liberation Army — one of the
most violent militant black organizations of the 1970s. She was wanted
in connection with a string of felonies, including bank robberies in New
York.

Pulled over by the troopers, Chesimard, who was in the passenger seat,
pulled out her semi-automatic pistol and fired the first shot. The
passenger in the rear seat, James Coston, then fired multiple shots
before he was killed by a bullet from Harper's gun. As Harper sought
cover, Chesimard stepped out of the car and continuously fired at both
him and Foerster, who was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Clark
Squire, the driver.

Foerster was shot in the abdomen and right arm. According to police
accounts, Chesimard picked up Foerster's gun and put two bullets in his
head, execution style, as he lay along the side of the turnpike.
Authorities say her jammed handgun was found next to Foerster's body.

Chesimard, Coston and Squire fled and abandoned their car five miles
down the road. It didn't take long for police to locate the car and
Coston, who was found dead near the vehicle. A half hour after the
shooting, state police arrested Chesimard. Squire was arrested a mile
from the car about 40 hours after the incident.

Chesimard denied that she shot at anyone and claimed that the militant
and cop-killer labels made her a target. But four years later, she was
convicted of first-degree murder, assault and battery of a police
officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with intent to kill,
illegal possession of a weapon and armed robbery.

Her supporters, however, believed she was framed. She received letters
of support while awaiting trial and even released a radio address to her
followers.

In a 1997 documentary about her, Chesimard painted herself has a
political prisoner who was beaten in jail and treated like a slave while
in the U.S., even comparing herself to Harriet Tubman, the runaway
American slave who helped deliver dozens from bondage along the
Underground Railroad.

On Nov. 2, 1979, Chesimard escaped from prison in New Jersey. Police
believe a group of black and white domestic terrorists approached
Chesimard while at a maximum security prison in West Virginia, but
waited until she was transferred to a minimum security prison in New
Jersey before plotting the escape.

Three members of the group who were visiting Chesimard ordered a
corrections officer at gunpoint to open three gates that eventually led
out of the prison. They escaped in a jail van.

Police say Chesimard was taken to a safehouse in East Orange, N.J.,
where she hid for five years. In 1984 she surfaced in Cuba, where she
was granted political asylum.

Over the years, her legend has grown as her supporters continue to
proclaim her innocence. Curious college students travel to Cuba to meet
with her, family members send her goods, and she is paraded about during
political events there. She reportedly has been pursuing a master's
degree and living in a government-paid apartment in Havana.

All the while, U.S. authorities have been trying to bring her back to
serve out her life sentence.

"We've tried everything you can think of," Tormey told FOXNews.com.
"It's frustrating. Our goal isn't to combat that front [the Web sites
and reports that claim she is innocent] as much as having her in a U.S.
prison."

Jacuma Kambui, one of her supporters, told FOXNews.com in a telephone
interview, "I describe her as a mother, grandmother, auntie, sister,
daughter, a regular person that became the victim of a wicked system."

Kambui, who refers to Chesimard as Shakur, described himself as one of
6,700 members of The Talking Draw Correctives — an organization of Web
sites that try to promote the will of the African people.

"There are a lot of people convicted of crimes they never committed,"
Kambui said. "One of the reasons [I continue to support] Assata is
because she resisted the system and put herself in harm's way."

But the FBI, which has placed a $1 million bounty on Chesimard's head,
says she is a convicted cop killer and remains a threat to others. She
is considered to be armed and dangerous.

And despite what's known about her whereabouts, authorities say they
won't stop working to capture her.

"We will talk to anyone, anytime, anyplace," Tormey said.

Evelyn Williams: STATEMENT OF FACTS IN THE NJ TRIAL OF ASSATA SHAKUR

[Jacuma]

STATEMENT OF FACTS IN THE NEW JERSEY TRIAL OF ASSATA SHAKUR:
Written by Evelyn A. Williams, dated June 25, 2005


As a member of Assata’s New Jersey trial legal defense team, and her appeal lawyer, I think a correct statement of the circumstances of New Jersey Trooper Werner Foerster’s death as established by exhibits, trial testimony and forensic evidence and that conclusively repudiate the revisionist lies now being advanced by the State of New Jersey as “fact”, need to be repeated.

It is be remember that the only surviving eyewitnesses to the NJ Turnpike shoot-out were (1) Sundiata Acoli, (2) Trooper Harper, (3) Assata and (4) the driver of a car traveling along the NJ Turnpike at the time of the incident. Zayd Malik Shakur, a passenger, was killed during the shootout.

1. Sundiata did not testify at trial, nor did he make any pre-trial statements.

2. Harper’s testimony and actions are contained in the following documents (admitted into evidence)

a. The three official investigative reports prepared by Harper, in which he wrote that after he stopped the Pontiac, he ordered Sundiata to the back of the car to show his driver’s license to Trooper Foerster who had arrived at the scene. That Sundiata complied without incident. That as he looked into the inside door of the Pontiac to check the registration, Foerster yelled at him and held up an ammunition clip. He stated that at the same time Assata reached into a red pocketbook, removed a gun from it and fired at him. That he immediately ran to the rear of his car and fired at Assata, who had emerged from the car, and was firing at him from a prostrate position alongside of the Pontiac. And it was at this point that he shot her. (admitted into evidence)

b. His Grand Jury testimony where he swore under oath to the truth of the statements he had made in his 3 official reports. (admitted into evidence)

c. Trial transcripts of his testimony at both Sundiata’s and Assata’s trials where he admitted, under cross-examination, that he had lied in all three of his official reports and in his Grand Jury testimony. That the truth was that Foerster had never shown him an ammunition clip; that Foerster had not yelled to him; that he had not seen a gun in Assata’s hand while she was seated in the car; that Assata did not shoot him from the car; and that he had not seen a red pocketbook.

d. Audio tapes of the official recorded NJ Turnpike radio communications between all NJ State Trooper cars traveling the Turnpike near the scene of the shoot-out, dated May 2, 1973, which revealed that two additional turnpike patrol cars, those driven by Trooper Robert Palenchar and Trooper Woerner Foerster, had been ordered to aid Harper at the stop prior to the shoot-out. (admitted into evidence)

e. The verbatim, hand-written record of what transpired inside the NJ Turnpike Administration Building when Harper entered it at or about 1AM on May 2, 1973, to report the shoot-out to Sergeant Chester Baginski who was in charge of maintaining the official record of turnpike occurrences on that (refereed to as the Station Bible). Harper reported that he had just been involved in a shoot-out after he had stopped a Pontiac containing three Black people, two men and a woman, that he had been wounded, and that the Pontiac was proceeding South on the turnpike. He gave the license plate number, but did not mention that Trooper Foerster had arrived at the scene. (admitted into evidence)

f. Audio tapes of the investigation conducted by Detective Sgt. First Class Richard H. Kelly in the Administration Building at 7:37AM that morning to determine why over an hour elapsed from the time Harper entered the Administration Building that night and the discovery of Foerster’s body. Statements by each of the troopers present when Harper came into the Administration Building revealed that Harper had not reported Foerster’s presence at the scene and that no one was aware of the fact that Foerster lay on the road beside his car in front of the Administration building for over an hour, when his body was accidentally discovered by Trooper O’Rourke who had left the Administration building to investigate the scene of the shoot-out, less than 200 yards away. (admitted into evidence)

3. Assata testified that Harper stopped the car without any known reason, shot her with her arms raised at his demand, and then shot her in the back as she was turning to avoid his bullets. Almost mortally wounded, and semi-conscious, she climbed into the backseat of the Pontiac to avoid further bullets. Sundiata drove the car five miles down the road and parked it, where she remained until State Troopers dragged her onto the road.

4. A driver traveling north along the turnpike at the time of the incident testified at trial that he had seen a State Trooper struggling with a Black man between a parked white vehicle and a State Trooper car whose overhead revolving lights lit up the area. He was unable to identify the Black man, and further stated that he saw no one else on the road or at the scene. He immediately reported what he had seen to New Jersey Police Headquarters.

It therefore remained only forensic evidence to help determine the facts of that night as much as they could be determined. The forensic evidence examined by both the New Jersey crime laboratory in Trenton, New Jersey and FBI crime laboratories in Washington, D.C. established the following:

1. The finger print analyses of every gun and every piece of ammunition found at the scene showed there were no fingerprints of Assata found on any of them. (The official analyses admitted into evidence)

2. Neutron Activation Analysis taken immediately after Assata was taken to the hospital that night showed there was no gun power residue on her hands. Effectively refuting the possibility that she had fired a gun. (The official analyses were admitted into evidence)

3. As a result of the bullet Harper shot under her armpit, while her arms were raised in, her median nerve was severed, immediately paralyzing her entire right arm, shattering her clavicle, and lodging in her chest so close to her heart that an operation to remove it was not feasible. A neurologist testified to that fact at the trial.

4. A pathologist testified that “There is no conceivable way that the bullet could have traveled over to the clavicle if her arm was down. That trajectory is impossible.”

5. A surgeon testified that “it was anatomically necessary that both arms be in the air for Ms. Chesimard to have received the wounds she did.”

The state offered no expert witnesses to refute this medical testimony.

6. Photographs depicting the gunshot entry wound under her armpit and the entry would of the bullet Harper shot into her back were admitted into evidence during the trial.

Therefore, since no evidence existed that proved Assata fired the bullet that killed Trooper Foerster, why was she found guilty of his murder? There are several explanations:

The first is that the climate of hatred, prejudice and racism that had so contaminated the Middlesex County jury pool in 1973 that a change of venue was ordered, continued to exist in 1977. The unanimous opinion of the 1973 jury pool was “If she’s Black, she’s guilty.” After three defense motions for change of venue, Judge Leon Gerofsky granted the motion, stating, “It was almost impossible to obtain a jury here comprised of people willing to accept the responsibility of impartiality so that defendants will be protected from transitory passion and prejudice.” The trial was then moved to Morris County where Assata’s trial was severed from Sundiata’s because of her pregnancy.

In 1977 Assata began trial for the second time in this same Middlesex County, and this time jury nullification was insured: The jurors chosen to determine Assata’s guilt or innocence consisted of five jurors who were either relatives or close personal friends of state troopers or of state law enforcement officers.

However, Assata was not convicted of firing the shot that killed Trooper Foerster. She was convicted as an accomplice to his murder under New Jersey’s “aiding and abetting” statute. Under New Jersey law, if a person’s presence at the scene of a crime can be construed as “aiding and abetting” the crime, that person can be convicted of the substantive crime itself. Judge Theodore Appleby charged the jury that they were permitted to speculate that Assata’s “mere presence” at a scene of violence, with weapons in the vehicle, was sufficient to sustain a conviction of the murder of Trooper Foerster. She was also convicted of possession of weapons – none of which could be identified as having been handled by her and of the attempted murder of Trooper Harper, who had sustained a flesh wound at the time of the shootout.

Now, 32 years after her conviction, a new, fabricated version of Foerster’s death has emerged:

There is absolutely no evidence to support statements made by Col. Joseph R. Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, who said that “It was later determined that Werner Foerster’s service weapon was ripped from his holster as he lay wounded on the pavement, and he was executed with two shots to the head from his own service weapon.”

But his motivation for making those statements is clear:

1. To justify Assata being placed on the domestic terror watch list along with Osama bin Ladin. He said, “Anyone with a mindset that would execute a police officer once they were on the ground is dangerous enough to be considered a domestic terrorism threat.” But Assata is the only person convicted of a single domestic crime who has been classified a terrorist and put on the terrorism watch list, thereby nullifying the very definition of “terrorism”

2. To justify the $1 million dollar bounty to be paid from tax payers money. He said, “The reward money should make Chesimard a much more attractive quarry for professional bounty hunters.”

New Jersey State Assembly Speaker, Albio Sires, a longtime member of CANF (Cuban American National Foundation, representing Cuban exiles), said: “If Cuba’s citizenry could be informed of the $1 million bounty and the real story of Chesimard’s crimes, there is an increased likelihood of her being brought to Justice…. We want the Cuban people to know the real story about Joanne Chesimard and not the deceptive representation advanced by the Castro regime. We want people to realize that she is not a hero and she is really a violent criminal who is wanted for killing a State Trooper and escaping justice.”

By falsely asserting that Assata shot Foerster in the head while he lay helplessly on the ground, killing him “execution style”, the US Justice Department hopes to strip Assata of any of the sympathy and political support she now receives in the United States and from the citizens of Cuba. By labeling her a cold-blooded cop killer, the hope is that the real circumstances of the NJ Turnpike as well as all the years prior to that event during which time Assata was relentlessly hunted with the stated purpose of killing her on sight for having committed crimes of which the government knew she was innocent, will be forgotten.

But even as official lies are now being manufactured to convert Assata into a terrorist, so that Cuba can be accused of “harboring a terrorist” and to justify kidnapping her, there are, in fact, two well-known and admitted, convicted terrorists who are now being given safe harbor in the United States.

The US government has refused to extradite admitted terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, (charged with the shoot down of a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 civilians and convicted of other terrorist acts including the Bay of Pigs). The US government has also refused to extradite Posada’s convicted fellow terrorist, Orlando Bosch, who escaped from Venezuela and came to Miami in 1987 with the assistance of the CANF, Jeb Bush and his father, the then US Attorney, Gonzalez, who personally approved the bounty, also approved prisoner torture at Abu Ghreb. Or that the approval came after New Jersey resident, Michael Chertoff, was named Secretary of the Department of Homeland Defense.

There are the facts. Let us not forget them.

- Evelyn A. Williams

PS Special shout out to Elisa Keisha and Sourakhata for the outstanding Spanish and French Translations
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/pa...ta-shakur.html
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/po...kur-au-nj.html

[Jalili]

Those sick bastards are showing their true colors.....as if they never did.

[nattyreb]

Let's help beat back this attack by distributing the Statement of Facts as broadly as possible via mass e-mails, message boards, blogs, etc., and direct people to this site for further reading and translations, ASAP.

[Majadi]

This should be a must a neccesity to go on the offensive, instead of reacting. We need to be on this all day. Ironically today is a part of Customer Service Appreciation week in Corporate America, We were to dress up like any era in the past. I chose the 60's and 70's and I am repping BLA, and BPP all the way. I was just talking about Big Momma Assata a minute ago when I read this. Let's go to battle comrades!!!

[Im The Truth]

Oh boy, what a great way to honor CHE!

Originally Posted by Jacuma

This is a classic case of "putting the enemy to work" we must always stay ten steps ahead of these pigs

Talk about CLASSIC!!!!! Courtesy of the reactionary news service Fox News tens of thousands will see the The Statement Of The Facts by Elder Attorney Evelyn Williams, Assata Shakur’s lawyer. People who’ve never heard of Assata Shakur will read the blotch job by reactionary Fox News and click the link and bingo the The Statement Of The Facts by Elder Attorney Evelyn Williams in English, Spanish, and French. 10,000+ viewed the The Statement Of The Facts yesterday. Since they unknowingly went along with the plan… good job fox news. lmao!

As if we needed another excuse let’s do what nattyreb suggested for Assata and Che!

Originally Posted by nattyreb

Let's help beat back this attack by distributing the Statement of Facts as broadly as possible via mass e-mails, message boards, blogs, etc., and direct people to this site for further reading and translations, ASAP.

[MsLioness]

Originally Posted by XXPANTHAXX

WANTED: Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard Remains Out of Reach in Cuba

Wednesday, October 08, 2008
By Michelle Maskaly

This is a weekly series that profiles America's most wanted criminals.

To a few die-hard militants, Joanne Deborah Chesimard — aka Assata
Shakur — is a courageous victim of a vast government conspiracy, a
modern-day Harriet Tubman fighting for the rights of African-Americans.

So what they got against Harriet Tubman, a KNOWN and ACCEPTED Fighter for the liberation of the People, ......they got against Assata Shakur.

What an honor it is!

Which proves that the crime they wish to convict her for is not killing at all, but the fight and struggle of liberating her People!!!!!

[XXPANTHAXX]

http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/bla.html

[XXPANTHAXX]

FOXNews.com - WANTED: Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard Remains Out of Reach in Cuba - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

[XXPANTHAXX]

Google this: Michelle Maskaly FoxNews this way you will understand exactly how we used these devils to reach 10s of thousands we would have never reached. After you google those keywords, imagine you being Michelle Maskaly's editor at FoxNews for a moment, would you be happy with these results?

Forward To PanAfrikanism!!!

[Sourakhata]

Well done Bro'..!!

Originally Posted by XXPANTHAXX

Google this: Michelle Maskaly FoxNews this way you will understand exactly how we used these devils to reach 10s of thousands we would have never reached. After you google those keywords, imagine you being Michelle Maskaly's editor at FoxNews for a moment, would you be happy with these results?

Forward To PanAfrikanism!!!

[Empress Yetzion]

Originally Posted by XXPANTHAXX

FOXNews.com - WANTED: Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard Remains Out of Reach in Cuba - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

"The Talking Draw Correctives"?????? was that deliberate????
what cheek! Unbelievable!

[Africa_SpokesPerson]

Thanks for this important piece of information comrade xxxpanthaxx, Sister Assata Shakur is in our hearts and i hope she is well protected in CUBA, because if something happen to her, the devilish people behind the wicked oppression, terrorism and human right violation against our people will have to pay a price.

In the face of pure state terrorism against it own citizens because of race, the victims of that terrorism have the right to organize themselves and defend themselves.

VIVA sister assata shakur, The people of the mother land (AFRICA) support that heroic comrade and her standing for our people world-wide.

[La Bella Afrique]

Originally Posted by Africa_spokesperson

Thanks for this important piece of information comrade xxxpanthaxx, Sister Assata Shakur is in our hearts and i hope she is well protected in CUBA, because if something happen to her, the devilish people behind the wicked oppression, terrorism and human right violation against our people will have to pay a price.

In the face of pure state terrorism against it own citizens because of race, the victims of that terrorism have the right to organize themselves and defend themselves.

VIVA sister assata shakur, The people of the mother land (AFRICA) support that heroic comrade and her standing for our people world-wide.

Agreed...Viva Sister Shakur, Viva La Revolution!

[XXPANTHAXX]

An Open Audio To The Pope and The World | RBG Tube | PanAfrican.TV 2.0 - Free Revolutionary Audio Video Speech Library of Leaders, Activist, and Educators




Your Holiness,

I hope this letter finds you in good health, in good disposition, and enveloped in the spirit of goodness. I must confess that it had never occurred to me before to write to you, and I find myself overwhelmed and moved to have this opportunity.

Although circumstances have compelled me to reach out to you, I am glad to have this occasion to try and cross the boundaries that would otherwise tend to separate us.

I understand that the New Jersey State Police have written to you and asked you to intervene and to help facilitate my extradition back to the United States. I believe that their request is unprecedented in history. Since they have refused to make their letter to you public, although they have not hesitated to publicize their request, I am completely uninformed as to the accusations they are making against me. Why, I wonder, do I warrant such attention? What do I represent that is such a threat?

Please let me take a moment to tell you about myself. My name is Assata Shakur and I was born and raised in the United States. I am a descendant of Africans who were kidnapped and brought to the Americas as slaves. I spent my early childhood in the racist segregated South. I later moved to the northern part of the country, where I realized that Black people were equally victimized by racism and oppression.

I grew up and became a political activist, participating in student struggles, the anti-war movement, and, most of all, in the movement for the liberation of African Americans in the United States. I later joined the Black Panther Party, an organization that was targeted by COINTELPRO, a program that was set up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to eliminate all political opposition to the U.S. government's policies, to destroy the Black Liberation Movement in the U.S., and to discredit activists and to eliminate potential leaders.

As a result of being targeted by COINTELPRO, I, like many other young people, was faced with the threat of prison, underground, exile or death.

At this point, I think that it is important to make one thing very clear. I have advocated and still advocate revolutionary changes in the structure and in the principles that govern the U.S. I advocate an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism, and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty.

To make a long story short, ...let me emphasize that justice for me is not the issue, it is justice for my people that is at stake. When my people receive justice, I am sure that I will receive it, too. I know that Your Holiness will reach your own conclusions, but I feel compelled to present the circumstances surrounding the applicatlon of "justice" in New Jersey. I am not the first nor the last person to be victimized by the New Jersey system of "justice." The New Jersey State Police are infamous for their racism and brutallty. Many legal actions have been filed against them and just recently, in a class action legal proceeding, the New Jersey State Police were found guilty of having an "officially sanctioned, de facto policy of targeting minorities for investigation and arrest."

Although New Jersey's population is more than 78 percent white, more than 75 percentof the prison population is made up of Blacks and Latinos. Eighty percent of women in New Jersey prisons are women of color. There are 15 people on death row in the state and seven of them are Black. A 1987 study found that New Jersey prosecutors sought the death penalty in 50 percent of cases involving a Black defendant and a white victim, but in only 28 percent of cases involving a Black defendant and a Black victim.

Unfortunately, the situation in New Jersey is not unique, but reflects the racism that permeates the entire country. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. There are more than 1.7 million people in U.S. prisons. This number does not include the more than 500,000 people in city and county jails, nor does it include the alarming number of children in juvenile institutions.

The vast majority of those behind bars are people of color and virtually all of those behind bars are poor.

The result of this reality is devastating. One third of Black men between the ages of 20 and 29 are either in prison or under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system.

Prisons are big business in the United States, and the building, running, and supplying of prisons has become the fastest growing industry in the country. Factories are being moved into the prisons and prisoners are being forced to work for slave wages. This super-exploitation of human beings has meant the institutionalization of a new form of slavery. Those who cannot find work are forced to work in prison.

Not only are prisons being used as instruments of economic exploitation, they also serve as lnstruments of political repression. There are more than 100 political prisoners in the U.S. They are African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, Natlve Americans, Asians, and progressive white people who oppose the policies of the United States government. Many of those targeted by the COINTELPRO program have been in prison since the early 1970s.

Although the situation in the prisons is an lndication of human rights violations inside the United States, there are other, more deadly indicators.

There are currently 3,365 people now on death row, and more than 50 percent of those awaiting death are people of color. Black people make up only 13 percent of the population, but we make up 41 percent of persons who have received the death penalty.

The number of state assassinations has increased drastically. In 1997 alone, 71 people were executed.

A special reporter assigned by the United Nations organization found serious human rights violations in the U.S., especially those related to the death penalty. According to these findings, people who were mentally ill were sentenced to death, and people with severe mental and learning disabilities, as well as minors under age 18. Serious racial bias was found on the part of judges and prosecutors.

Specifically mentioned in the report was the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the only political prisoner on death row, who was sentenced to death because of his political beliefs and because of his work as a journalist, exposing police brutality in the city of Philadelphia.

Police brutality is a daily occurrence in our communities. The police have a virtual license to kill and they do kill: children, grandmothers, anyone they perceive to be the enemy. They shoot first and ask questions later. Inside the jails and prisons there is at least as much brutality as there was on slave plantations. An ever increasing number of prisoners are found hanging in their cells.

The United States is becoming a land more hostile to Black people and other people of Color. Racism is running rampant and xenophobia is on the rise. This has been especially true in the sphere of domestic policy.

Politicians are attempting to blame social problems on Black people and other people of color. There have been attacks on essentially all affirmative action programs designed to help correct the accumulated results of hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination. In addition, the government seems determined to eliminate all social programs that provide assistance to the poor, resulting in a situation where millions of people do not have access to basic health care, decent housing or quality education.

It was with great happiness that I read the Christmas message that Your Holiness delivered. I applaud you for taking up the cause of the poor, the homeless, the unemployed. The fact that you are addressing the issues of today, unemployment, hopelessness, child abuse, and the drug problem, is important to people all over the world.

One third of Black people in the United States live in poverty, and our communities are inundated with drugs. We have every reason to believe that the CIA and other government agencies are involved in drug trafficking.

Although we live in one of the richest, most techically advanced countries in the world, our reality is similar to an undeveloped, Third World country. We are a people who are truly seeking freedom and harmony.

All my life I have been a spiritual person. I first learned of the struggle and the sacrifice of Jesus in the segregated churches of the South. I converted to Catholicism as a young girl. In my adult life I have become a student of religion and have studied Christianity, Islam, Asian religions and the African religions of my ancestors. I have come to believe that God is universal in nature although called different names and with different faces. I believe that some people spell God with one "O" while others spell it with two.

What we call God is unimportant, as long as we do God's work. There are those who want to see God's wrath fall on the oppressed and not on the oppressors.I believe that the time has ended when slavery, colonialism, and oppression can be carried out in the name of religion. It was in the dungeons of prison that I felt the presence of God up close, and it has been my belief in God,and in the goodness of human beings that has helped me to survive. I am not ashamed of having been in prison, and I am certainly not ashamed of having been a political prisoner. I believe that Jesus was a political prisoner who was executed because he fought against the evils of the Roman Empire, because he fought the greed of the money changers in the temple, because he fought against the sins and injustices of his time. As a true child of God, Jesus spoke up for the poor, the meek, the sick, and the oppressed. The early Christians were thrown into lion dens. I will try and follow the example of so many who have stood up in the face of overwhelming oppression.

I am not writing to ask you to intercede on my behalf. I ask nothing for myself. I only ask you to examine the social reality of the United States and to speak out against the human rights violations that are taking place.

On this day, the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., I am reminded of all those who gave their lives for freedom. Most of the people who five on this planet are still not free. I ask only that you continue to work and pray to end Oppression and political repression. It is my heartfelt belief that all the people on this earth deserve justice: social justice, political justice, and economic justice. I believe it is the only way that we will ever achieve peace and prosperity on earth. I hope that you enjoy your visit to Cuba. This is not a country that is rich in material wealth, but it is a country that is rich in human wealth, spiritual wealth and moral wealth.

Respectfully yours,

Assata Shakur
Havana, Cuba