Puerto Rican Political Prisoners: It's Time to Let Them Go!
Fuentes, Anette
Ignored until recently by all but a small, committed group of supporters, 15 Puerto Rican political prisoners still locked away in jails across the United States are a living reminder of...
...brought the campaign to the White Vol XXX...
...Who would have guessed that more than a decade later, the freedom of the independentistas would become a cause cdlkbre in the mainstream Puerto Rican community...
...Puerto Rican independentistas and two militant underground organizations, Los Macheteros (The Machete Wielders) and the Armed Front of National Liberation (FALN), were active in both the mainland United States and Puerto Rico during the 1970s and early 1980s...
...Warming people up for the media campaign was a door-to-door petition drive demanding the release of the prisoners, carried out by volunteers in communities throughout the island...
...counsel Jack Quinn, who promised to prepare a briefing memo for Clinton...
...A retired professor, he earned a law degree that has enabled him to visit the prisonRelatives and supporters of the prisoners call attention to their anomalous long sentences...
...They were made an example in order to discourage others from engaging in anti-colonial work...
...All 15 of the accused were tried and convicted in Chicago courts, refusing legal representation or to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the courts...
...Elizam Escobar was a public school teacher in New York City and also taught at the Museo del Barrio...
...The courts imposed extraordinary sentencesranging from 40 to 105 years-even though their crimes involved no physical injury to property or human life...
...The FALN's call for armed struggle did not, in short, resonate widely in Puerto Rico or among Puerto Ricans on the mainland...
...Meanwhile, Democratic members of Congress Nydia Veldzquez (New York), Luis Gutirrrez (Illinois) and Jos6 Serrano (New York) are lobbying on Capitol Hill for a pardon...
...colonialism...
...For the first time since the 15 were imprisoned, there is real hope that a presidential pardon may set them free...
...Weapons and firearms violations earned average sentences of just 49 months...
...Oscar L6pez Rivera, considered the leader of the group by government prosecutors, helped found the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago...
...A short advertisement with celebrities calling for a pardon is now playing in movie houses throughout the island...
...The independentistas have endured subtle forms of deprivation-both physical and psychological-since their arrest, says Jan Susler, a Chicago-based attorney who has represented the Puerto Who would have guessed that more than a decade after their imprisonment, the freedom of the independentistas would become a cause cPl6bre in the mainstream Puerto Rican community...
...Even if most Puerto Ricans harbored strong nationalist feelings and many shared the dream of an independent nation, they steered clear of the radicalism associated with the political prisoners...
...Even John Cardinal O'Connor, Archibishop of New York City, has joined the movement...
...Torres suffered physical abuse from the prison staff, says Susler, including strip searches and assaults during the early years of her incarceration...
...In a March 12 letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, he asked that she review all 15 cases of the Puerto Rican prisoners on "humanitarian grounds...
...The pardon application filed by Susler is still pending in the Justice Department...
...Lewisburg, Pennsylvania...
...Congress in 1954...
...Grand juries in Chicago charged each of the accused with multiple counts of sedition and conspiracy and the possession of illegal weapons and explosives...
...This was especially the case during the repressive Reagan years...
...Whether you agree politically with the prisoners or not, you could support their cause because their rights were so flagrantly abused...
...Last February, former President Jimmy Carter offered to assist the Campaign's efforts to negotiate a pardon...
...Mainstream Puerto Rican organizations carefully avoided the issue...
...So did musicians Andy Montafiez and Jacobo Morales...
...It is now time for our political prisoners to be freed...
...federal agents between 1980 and 1985 marked a major offensive against the Puerto Rican independence movement...
...In La Perla, a notorious ghetto outside of San Juan, the response was equally enthusiastic...
...She is also editor of Critica: A Journal of Puerto Rican Policy and Politics, published monthly by the NewYork-based Institute for Puerto Rican Policy...
...We decided to expand our movement to include all organizations, some less radical," says Falc6n...
...On March 29-National Puerto Rican Affirmation Day3,000 Puerto Ricans flocked to the capital demanding freedom for the prisoners...
...Earlier this year, Boricua First...
...Prosecutors presented evidence, including dynamite, guns and detonation timers, obtained from apartments allegedly used as safe houses by several members of the group...
...Alejandrina Torres was kept in a notorious maximum-security unit at a women's penitentiary in Lexington, Kentucky, which was cited by Amnesty International for its violations of prisoners' rights...
...During their first two years in custody, two of the women were kept in total isolation...
...The indictments detailed conspiracies to oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States...
...Falc6n, a sociologist, has devoted most of the last 15 years to supporting the jailed activists...
...Rican 15 over the past 16 years...
...Dylcia Pagan was a TV producer and writer at NBC, ABC and PBS...
...In April, the Campaign delivered 11,000 postcards to the White House calling on Clinton to grant a pardon...
...These movements took their cue from previous generations of Puerto Rican nationalists who believed in armed resistance to U.S...
...colonialism on the Caribbean island...
...In Las Marids, a conservative enclave in northern Puerto Rico, everyone, including the mayor, signed the petition...
...Through a vigorous media campaign and extensive grassroots organizing, supporters both in Puerto Rico and the mainland have catapulted the political prisoners' plight from relative obscurity into the public eye...
...Not one of the prisoners was ever charged, however, with an act of violence that caused harm to a person or property...
...At the time of their arrests, most of the 15 independentistas were living and working in the Chicago area as educators, community organizers and university students...
...A contingent of Boricua First...
...For many Puerto Ricans, says Jan Susler, the 15 independentistas have become a national symbol, even if they believe the activists were involved in acts of terrorism...
...Today, the struggle to obtain their freedom has mushroomed into a broad-based human rights campaign stretching from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States...
...The Justice Department, then headed by Attorney General Edwin Meese, ignored their demands...
...Mandela and Arafat have been welcomed in the White House," says Nilda Pimentel, director of the Boricua First...
...The remaining prisoners are scattered among the nation's federal penitentiaries, including Leavenworth, Kansas...
...and Danbury, Connecticut...
...Until recently, only a few left-leaning Puerto Rican organizations kept alive the cause of freeing the imprisoned activists...
...The study found that the average sentence of 842 months for the Puerto Rican political prisoners was three times higher than the highest sentence meted out in 1980-262 months for kidnapping...
...Ignored until recently by all but a small, committed group of supporters, 15 Puerto Rican political prisoners still locked away in jails across the United States are a living reminder of U.S...
...Edwin Cortes was a student activist at the University of Illinois, and Ricardo Jimenez attended the Illinois Institute of Technology...
...A pardon application filed by Susler in 1993 included the results of a study comparing the sentences imposed on the Puerto Rican nationalists with prison terms for individuals convicted of similar crimes...
...Marion, Illinois...
...The length of the sentences imposed on the Puerto Rican nationalists has become a key point for those pressing for their release...
...In April, Ofensiva '92 launched a media blitz on radio and TV with the slogan, "ya es tiempo de traerles a casa"-"it's time to bring them home...
...The Clinton administration has not yet signalled its position on the issue, but the campaign organizers remain optimistic...
...After twelve years of Republican rule in Washington, a Democratic administration offers a "window of opportunity" to get the prisoners released, says Luis Nieves Falc6n, coordinator of Ofensiva '92, a group based in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico...
...Our main thrust was to stress the humanitarian nature of the campaign...
...The arrest of the 10 men and 5 women by U.S...
...In this prison, says Susler, solitary confinement and a prohibition on interaction among inmates is the rule...
...When you see the sentences given to them," says Nilda Pimentel, director of the Campaign to Free the Political Prisoners, "there is no other way to explain it...
...After being transferred from Marion federal prison, L6pez is now serving out his 55-year term at the country's newest maximum-security prison for men in Florence, Colorado...
...Puerto Rico's Catholic bishops and cardinal, as well as Episcopal church, have also become active supporters of the pardon effort...
...Declaring themselves prisoners of an anticolonial war, they demanded a hearing before an international tribunal...
...Today she is in ill health...
...Puerto Rican artists and celebrities, including soapopera celebrity Cordelia Gonzilez and salsa-maestro Willie Col6n, lent their names and voices to the effort...
...No 3 Nov/DEc 19967 Vol XXX...
...Annette Fuentes is a freelance journalist and a member of NACLA's editorial board...
...campaign...
...Compared to all violent criminals sentenced in 1981, the sentences imposed on the Puerto Rican nationalists were seven times higher...
...leaders met with White House matter of timing and presentation...
...Making the quantum leap from a marginal cause to a broad-based campaign supported by Puerto Ricans along the entire political spectrum, says Falc6n, has been a ers regularly and advocate on their behalf...
...The Campaign to Free the Political Prisoners is being organized on the mainland by Boricua First!, a Washington, D.C.-based organization formed in 1994 to advance political, economic and social justice for Puerto Ricans...
...It was, after all, Jimmy Carter-another southern Democratic president-who in 1979 pardoned four Puerto Rican nationalists who had opened fire on a session of the U.S...
...Along with other activist groups on the island, Ofensiva '92 has crafted a sophisticated and successful campaign on behalf of the political prisoners that has won the hearts and minds of Puerto Ricans who, whether they are statehooders, independentistas or pro-commonwealth, all share a strong nationalism...
...Oscar L6pez is the only prisoner," says Susler, "who continues to live in horrible conditions...
...No 3 Nov/DEc 1996 7UPDATE / POLITICAL PRISONERS House...
...Third from the left is writer Piri Thomas...
...The others arrested include: Adolfo Matos, Antonio Camacho Negr6n, sisters Alicia and Ida Luz Rodriguez, Luis Rosa, Alejandrina Torres, Juan Segarra Palmer, Carlos Alberto Torres, and Carmen Valentin...
Vol. 30 • November 1996 • No. 3
