Assassinations That Shook the World (Part II)

A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.

By Elizabeth H. Elys:

The Concept of Assassination

The violent act of assassination is defined as the murder of a political, royal or public individual. The term is derived from the order of the Assassins, which was an 11^th and 12^th century Muslim sect that advanced its political goals by murdering high-ranking officials. The origin of the word is “Assassium”, Arabic for fundamentalist, from the world ASSASS, foundation. The suicide squad of the assassins, which was a militant arm of the Islamic Isma’ili sect, was founded by Hassan Sabah and operated from the Alamat cliff top fortress in the Elburz Mountains of Persia, now known as Iran.

The Assassins, according to the legend, were called Hashishiyun, smokers of Hashish by their enemies as the hashish was believed to be the source of their vision, which commanded their violent acts. 

Marco Polo wrote of the sect and an impregnable fortress in the mountains of Persia when detailing an account of his travels. The term assassination was not defined until the Muslim sect materialized in the 11^th century, their method or tool or political murder had been in use since as early 900B.C. The Ancient Greeks and Romans did not have a word that corresponds with our word Assassination. A killing was simply a means to an end. 

An individual who killed a public figure was a murder or a tyrannicide, and the later term was synonymous word for LIBERATOR, one who freed his country. According to Cicero, some of the most celebrated figure in Greek and Roman history very tyrant –killers, Brutus, who murder Caesar, was born of long line of tyrants killers. Assassins make history.

Never in history of mankind there were so many assassinations like to former Cuban president Fidel Castro who recently died on November 25, 2016. 

VIVA FIDEL CASTRO!

There were more than 600 assassinations attempts on his life. He lived a long and dignified life. Fidel Castro will remain in memory to us, as a symbol of resistance to the hegemony of the US government, the hero of the Cuban revolution, same like his companion Latin-American revolutionary leader Che Guevara, who was assassinated in Bolivia on October 1967. Together, they managed to oust the US backed president Fulgencio Batista. 

Fidel Castro became one of the biggest targets of the American government. He was seen as a massive threat to capitalism as well as national security, after pledging allegiance to Soviet Union.

The most famous attempt on Castro’s life was the Bay of Pigs crisis; a group of CIA backed Cuban exiles mounted an attempt at a coup which failed. That was only one of thousands of different CIA plots on Castro’s life.

A former Aide of Castro, Fabian Escalante, wrote a book called 638 Ways to Kill Castro, and these are some of the most ridiculous plots outlined in it. One plan reportedly involved adding extra toxins to his cigars so his beard would fall out leading to a drop in his popularity. Another involved spiking the cigars with LSD so he burst out laughing while making a public address. 

The closest they came was enlisting one of his many girlfriends, Marita Lorenz, to feed him poisonous pills. He found out and handed a gun to her to do the job, Lorenz had of course had a change of mind by then.

In Panama in 2000, 90 kg worth of explosives were placed under a podium at which Castro was due to speak. The plot was foiled by his security detail. One of the plotters was a Cuban exile and former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles.

MARTIN LUTHER KING

Assassinations are tragic but sometimes inescapable, part of history. Speaking about political figure, we can emphasize Civil Rights giant Martin Luther King. He was the main man behind the American Civil Rights Movement.

The movement was an attempt to abolish the racial discrimination of African American. On April 4^th 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room, King was fatally shot. Following the assassination, there were riots in over sixty cities across the USA, and later president Johnson declared a day of mourning. Two months later escaped convict James E. Ray was captured in London and he was extradited to Tennessee where he faced the charge of murder against King. Ray was a white man who was opposed the African American Rights Movement. 

MALCOLM X was one of the most galvanizing political figures of the 1950s and 1960s. He became a member of NATION of ISLAM. He soon began promoting its ideas.

Unlike Dr. King, Malcolm X rejected non-violence as strategy and advocated for black separatism. He was shot on February 21, 1965 by three Nation of Islam members, while he was giving a speech at Audubon Ballroom in New York. 

JOHN LENNON

On December 8^th 1980 was one of the most tragic assassinations in history of popular music.  John Lennon who became a music icon, peace activist a member of the band The Beatles was shot four times by M.D. Chapman who was charged with murder. The assassin remains in prison to this day. 

Next: Part III