Severe condemnation of Rosselló and CRB
Translated from the original Spanish
By Julio Ghigliotty, El Nuevo Día

Información enviada al Director de Tlahui. Puerto Rico a 19 de Abril, 1999. Vega Baja: In an emotional speech in favor of the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners, Rafael Cancel Miranda branded governor Pedro Rosselló and resident commissioner Carlos Romero Barceló as traitors to the homeland. Cancel Miranda, who served 25 years in federal prison for shooting at the United States Congress in 1954, said in a brief speech at the fourth assembly of the National Hostosiano Congress that these Puerto Ricans should never have gone to prison. "The ones who should be in prison are the jailers who sent them there and those who betray this homeland of ours--we know who they are," said Cancel Miranda, who also served prison time for refusing obligatory military service during the Korean War.

He assured that the Puerto Rican political prisoners "are vertical people who when they leave will walk out heads held high, because thanks to you Lolita Lebrón, Andrés Figueroa Cordero, Irving Flores, Oscar Collazo and I walked out with our heads held high, which is what hurts the traitors." He also argued that those who promote the release of the political prisoners promote their own freedom because "while one of them is in prison, we are all prisoners with them."

He also said that those imprisoned for acts of conscience are not prisoners. "I was in prison for 28 years, but I was never a prisoner. I was always my own person; they couldn't take the Puerto Rican out of me; I was always free," he affirmed, and those present interrupted him in thunderous applause.

"The prisoners are the Rossellós, the Romeros, and all those who betray their homeland. And the only key that can free them from that prison is if they catch a little shame, and that is pretty difficult for someone who betrays the homeland," Cancel Miranda ended saying.

From: National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Prisoners prpowpp@aol.com
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