> May of 2008
>
>
> New Statement from Assata!!
>
>
> 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, bec
> ause 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 bel
> ieve 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 increasin
> gly 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 ag
> o. 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=2
> 0of 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