Assata vs Posada: A Case Study in U.S. Hypocrisy Now that the Obama administration has taken steps toward normalizing US relations with Cuba, liberals, conservatives, and the media are lining up to demand Cuba hand over fugitives taking refuge in the island nation, most prominently Black liberation activist Assata Shakur.
Unsurprisingly, I can’t find anyone in the media calling out the hypocrisy of making such a demand while the United States harbors Cuban exile and fugitive terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative convicted of murdering dozens of civilians in terrorist attacks, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in which 73 people lost their lives. The US refuses to hand Posada over to Cuba, where he would be tried anew, citing that he might be tortured there. Posada lives in Miami, free to roam around the country.
Compare this treatment to that of Assata Shakur. During the period that Posada was planting bombs around Latin America, Assata Shakur was present for the killing of a New Jersey state trooper. Though convicted of first-degree murder, Shakur never even held or fired a gun during the incident; evidence strongly suggests she was shot while trying to surrender, completely unarmed. Nevertheless, the FBI has seen fit to list her on its most wanted list, with a million-dollar bounty on her head. This of course is not due to the crime of which she was convicted but rather her revolutionary politics and persistent blackness.
Assata Shakur’s activism has focused on liberating her people (Black Americans) from systemic oppression. Luis Posada Carrile’s terrorism focused on expropriating the property of his people (Cuban and foreign capitalists) from Cuban collectivisation.
Yet if outlets like CNN, the LA Times, CBS News, and The Daily Beast have their way, you’ll learn all about Cuba’s harboring of a wanted American and nothing about the US’s protection of a terrorist sought by Cuba and other countries. Assata is labeled a “cop killer” and sometimes even a terrorist without qualification, despite not having killed any police, or anyone else for that matter. The actual terrorist mass murderer Posada? Well, he’s just not mentioned at all.
—Brian Dominick / radicalreboot
