Puerto Ricans Demand Pardons

Información enviada a Mario Rojas, Director de Tlahui. Puerto Rico, a 29 de Agosto, 1999. from the AP Wire.

AUGUST 29, 19:42 EDT
Puerto Ricans Demand Pardons

By ISMAEL TORRES
Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Shouting "Freedom for the patriots!", thousands of Puerto Ricans marched in San Juan on Sunday to demand that President Clinton give unconditional pardons to 16 independence fighters jailed for sedition.

The demonstrators carried photos of the activists, members of the Armed Forces for National Liberation (FALN) and the Macheteros guerrilla groups. The two organizations carried out more than 130 bomb attacks in the United States between 1974 and 1983 to demand independence for this Caribbean territory.

Trucks with loudspeakers blared patriotic music as marchers guided floats through San Juan's banking district to a rally in front of the U.S. Federal Building. A protester costumed as the Statue of Liberty walked on stilts carrying a Puerto Rican flag and photographs of the prisoners.

"President Clinton should listen to this (protest) and bring them home," said protesting college student Juan Carlos Colon.

Police said the demonstration was peaceful.

Clinton offered on Aug. 11 to reduce the sentences of all 16 prisoners, including releasing 11. But Clinton demanded that those 11 ask for clemency in writing, renounce violence, and abide by parole conditions that would bar them from meeting with other convicted criminals.

Independence activists say those conditions are humiliating and would forbid them from meeting with pro-independence comrades, since many activists on the island have criminal records. Twelve were convicted in Illinois and four in Connecticut and are jailed in prisons in the United States.

"The (conditions) are onerous, an insult to the dignity of a people that has an inalienable right to fight for its liberation," said Lolita Lebron, who spent 25 years in prison for leading a shooting attack on the House of Representatives in 1954.

In the United States, Clinton's clemency offer has outraged victims of the FALN bombings and some politicians.

U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said Sunday that Congress might consider a resolution condemning the action. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., said it "sends the wrong signal to terrorists around the world."

In New York City, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Friday urged Clinton to revoke the offer. The FALN is suspected of planting 49 bombs in New York between 1974 and 1977; and in 1975 it bombed Greenwich Village's historic Fraunces Tavern, killing four people and wounding 60.

The 3.8 million residents of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory since 1898, are U.S. citizens and can be drafted into the military, but they cannot vote for president and have no vote in Congress. They do not pay federal taxes but receive limited federal benefits.

Support for independence has waned since the 1980s, when a wave of arrests broke up the movement's more radical groups. In a December referendum, less than three percent of Puerto Ricans voted to become a separate country.

From: ALM alm1998@aol.com
Más información - Further information - Plus d'information