Tlahui-Politic. No. 8, II/1999
Response To FBI
Información enviada a Mario Rojas, Director de Tlahui. Puerto Rico, a 1 de Septiembre, 1999. Campaign response.
STATEMENT BY THE
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO
RESPONSE TO FBI
1. The President of the United States, in his offer of Executive
Clemency of August 11, 1999, correctly determined that the Puerto Rican men
and women imprisoned for their efforts toward the independence of Puerto Rico
are serving "excessive," "harsh," and "disproportionate" sentences. For this
reason he conditionally commuted the sentences of all but one, providing for
the possibility of immediate conditional release for 11 and later conditional
release for 2, who would have to serve an additional 5 and 10 years
respectively.
2. The broad campaign which led to the President's offer of clemency
responded that the offer was "bittersweet' Agreeing with the President's
assessment that the sentences were excessive, the campaign wondered why he
hadn't simply released all 15 prisoners unconditionally, and vowed to
continue the campaign to achieve the same unconditional release of all 15, as
President Carter did in 1979 with the Puerto Rican Nationalist prisoners.
3. In a vitriolic, political document wholly inappropriate for a law
enforcement agency, dated August 18, 1999 and mysteriously sent to the news
media, the FBI again, exposing its role as a political police force, seeks to
undermine the exercise of the President's clemency authority, in a
transparent attempt to counter the ongoing campaign for complete justice for
the 15 political prisoners. The document is not news. Rather than looking to
the 1997 statement made by the prisoners and subinitted to the U.S. Congress
House Resources Committee considering legislation concerning the status of
Puerto Rico, in which the prisoners clearly indicated their desire to be
involved in the legal political process, the FBI relies on information almost
two decades old that was available to the Administration at the time the
offer was extended. The FBI document is devoid of any information that any of
the 15 intend to engage in any ¡Ilegal activity upon their release from
prison. While the President's offer of Clemency could certainly be regarded
as an olive branch to Puerto Rico, whose status is acknowledged to be a
problem which requires a solution, the spirit of the FBI's document is
anything but reconciliatory.
4. While the FBI is required to function as a neutral law enforcement
agency, particularly with respect to the political movement for the
independence of Puerto Rico, the unsigned statement is a continuation of the
COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence) Program, dating back to the 1950's, designed
to disrupt, neutralize and destroy the independence movement. This recent
anonymous communique only confirms that FBI's political machinations are
alive and well in spite of Congress' efforts to end the FBI's ¡Ilegal
interference with political movements.
5. The information in their communique, using guilt by association,
attributes responsibility to the 15 for acts for which they were never
indicted, never tried, and never convicted. While other FALN attacks killed
six people and wounded dozens of others, those offered elemency "never killed
anyone," said White House deputy chief of staff Maria Echaveste. The Clinton
administration deemed their punishments, which ranged ftom 15- to 105 year
prison sentences and fines as high as $500,000, too harsh to fit their
crimes. Oscar López Rivera, one of the 15 included in the President's offer,
is a Viet Nam veteran, decorated with a Bronze Star. He had no role in the My
La¡ Massacre. But by the FBIs logic, painting guilt with a broad brush, would
make López and every other Viet Nam veteran responsible for that act of
atrocity.
6. lf the FBI had evidence that any of the 15 were responsible for
bombing incidents, including those in which people were injured or killed,
they would certainly have prosecuted them. This would have been easy enough
to do, since the FBI was well aware that most of the 15 did not even defend
themselves in court, but rather invoked intemational law, asking that their
case be heard by an impartial intemational tribunal. As a result of the use
of the seditious conspiracy statute, 13 of the 15 were found guilty of a
seditious conspiracy to commit 28 bombings in the Northem District of
Illinois-none of which resulted in injury or death--without any individual
determination of guilt. In other words, no one was convicted of carrying out
any bombing, but simply of having participated in the FALN.
7. Thus, the FBIs attempt to deflect the campaign's efforts must
fail, as so many supporters persist in their demands to achieve the
unconditional release of all 15 Puerto Rican political prisoners, including:
Puerto Rican Archbishop Robert González Nieves, U. S. Congressional
Representatives José Serrano, Luis Gutiérrez, Nydia Velázquez, New York City
Councilman José Rivera, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Puerto Rican Secretary of
State Norma Burgos, Puerto Rican Democratic Party President William Miranda,
the National Puerto Rican Coalition, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and
Education Fund, the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico, Cook County (IL)
Commissioner Roberto Maldonado, Rep. Edgar López (IL. House), and a host of
others, as well as editorials from Spanish and English press across the U.S.
From: ALM alm1998@aol.com
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