Sample Letter To President Clinton
Carta tipo al Presidente Clinton
Problems With The Clinton Administration's Offer

Información enviada a Mario Rojas, Director de Tlahui. Puerto Rico, a 14 de Agosto, 1999. What You Can do.

Companer@s:

Here is a sample letter (English &Spanish) to the White House. Please edit as you wish and send to President ASAP, via email, phone or fax. It is urgent to do this everyday and ask at least 5 other people to do the same. I am also attaching a list stating the problems with the conditions being imposed on the patriots by the Clinton administration. Please send copies of your message to the National Committee. White House phone #(202)456-1111, Fax#(202)456-2883, email President@WhiteHouse.gov

En Lucha,

National Committee to Free Puerto Rican
Prisoners of War and
Political Prisoners
2607 West Division Street
Chicago, Illinois 60622
(773)278-0885/ Fax: (773)278-1633
email: prpowpp@aol.com

SAMPLE LETTER TO PRESIDENT CLINTON

President Clinton,

I am writing/calling to express my outrage at the conditions imposed in your offer of "clemency" to the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners.

I want to say very strongly there are 15 Puerto Rican political prisoners, NOT 11! All of them must be pardoned. And by pardon I mean unconditionally. Your offer treats them worse than common criminals.

Your intervention in the peace process in Ireland and in the peace talks between the Palestinian National Authority and Israel did not impose any conditions on their political prisoners' release.

President Clinton, the conditions you are imposing are inhumane and more importantly, they are another attempt to criminalize these women and men, who far from being criminals are patriots. To struggle against colonialism is not a crime on the contrary, colonialism is the crime according to the United Nations.

The excessive nature of their sentences has always been the argument for their release. I urge you to grant them unconditional pardon immediately!

Name
Address

Estimado Presidente Clinton,

Escribo para expresar mi indignación por las condiciones impuestas para los prisioneros políticos puertorriquenos en su oferta de "clemencia". Quiero decirle enfáticamente que son 15 presos políticos, no son 11. Todos tienen que ser perdonados. El perdón tiene que ser incondicional. Su oferta los trata peor que si fueran criminales comunes. En su intervención en el proceso de paz en Irlanda y en las discusiones de paz entre las Autoridades Nacionalistas Palestinas e Israel usted no impuso condición alguna a la excarcelación de los presos políticos en esos países. Las condiciones que usted les impone son inhumanas y mas importante constituyen otro intento más de criminalizar a estas mujeres y hombres, que lejos de ser criminales son patriotas. Luchar contra el colonialismo no es un crimen, al contrario, el colonialismo es el crimen, según ha declarado las Naciones Unidas.

Las sentencias excesivas siempre han sido el argumento por la excarcelación de estos presos políticos. Le exhortó que le conceda amnistía incondicional a todos por igual, inmediatamente.

Su Nombre
Su Dirección

PROBLEMS WITH THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION'S OFFER

1. The offer does not apply equally to all 15 political prisoners on whose behalf the campaign submitted the petition for unconditional release. It provides for the immediate conditional release of 11: Edwin Cortés, Elizam Escobar, Ricardo Jiménez, Adolfo Matos, Dylcia Pagán, Alberto Rodríguez, Alicia Rodríguez, Ida Luz Rodríguez, Luis Rosa, Alejandrina Torres, Carmen Valentín; the conditional release of Juan Segarra Palmer in 5 years and remittance of his fine; the conditional release of Oscar López in 10 years; and no release for Carlos Alberto Torres (who is serving a 70 year sentence). It also provides no release for Antonio Camacho Negrón, who was already offered reparole, but does provide for remittance of his fine.

2. The offer is contingent on the prisoners accepting a series of conditions. Although the government admits that the 15 Puerto Rican political prisoners were given excessive prison terms for their acts in favor of Puerto Rican independence, the conditions they are being asked to accept as part of the offer does not, in fact, commute their sentences. It simply releases them from prison to continue to serve the remainder of their disproportionately lengthy sentences on the street, which, in some cases, will last for the rest of their lives.

3. The White House drafted a document for each prisoner to sign, agreeing to the terms of the commutation of their sentences. One of the terms requires them to renounce the use, attempted use, or advocacy of the use of violence as a condition for release. The prisoners have already made clear in a collective statement submitted to the U.S. House Resources Committee, at the time it was considering the "Young" bill concerning the status of Puerto Rico, that they intend to integrate themselves into the civic and civil life and legal political process of their communities, that they understand that times have changed, and they indicated their willingness to participate in a truly democratic, inclusive process to resolve the colonial status of Puerto Rico.

4. The majority of the conditions which would be imposed by signing the document are not made explicit it, but are simply referred to as the conditions established by the Parole Commission. Although the White House did not provide us with a list of these conditions, our research reveals that the conditions include strict travel and associational restrictions, among others. Should authorities determine that any violation of conditions occurs, the "commutation" would be instantly void, and the original sentence reinstated. Ironically, the prisoners have more freedom of speech and, in some cases where they are housed together, association, inside the prisons than they would if they were released under the conditions attached to the commutation. The offer amounts to release on parole, which does not constitute commutation or clemency. Furthermore, the conditions would interfere with their reintegration into civil society and the political process, limiting their travel and their ability to associate with each other as well as with other activists who have been similarly criminalized.

5. The offer is punitive. While the campaign's application for their release, submitted in 1993, sought their unconditional release as a humanitarian gesture and an act of political reconciliation, the offer stops short of releasing them from their sentences, and instead, continues to punish and criminalize them for their ongoing commitment to the independence of Puerto Rico.

6. The prisoners have no ability to discuss the Administration's offer with each other. Their ability to discuss it with their attorney, families, and the campaign which has worked so long for their release is limited in most cases to what they can afford, since the majority must pay for their own telephone calls, and is also limited to fifteen minute monitored and automatically terminated calls. For this reason, their attorney has asked the White House to facilitate their placement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, Illinois, where they would be able to confer with each other and their counsel.

7. The Clinton/Gore Administration has participated in many efforts to free political prisoners throughout the world, such as in South Africa, Palestine, the north of Ireland, and Kosovo, where political prisoners were freed without any conditions attached. In the case of Nelson Mandela, the U.S. government demanded his unconditional release. Mandela, who was convicted of the same charge--seditious conspiracy--as the Puerto Rican political prisoners, has been the major instrument in democratizing the South African political system.

The Puerto Rican people and their supporters immediately denounced the conditions as insulting and demeaning to the prisoners and to the Puerto Rican people as a whole. U.S. Congressional Representatives Luis V. Gutiérrez and Nydia Velázquez, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Archbishop Roberto González Nieves, New York City Councilman José Rivera, the National Puerto Rican Coalition, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and a host of others have already publicly expressed their strong sentiments and urged the Clinton/Gore Administration to release all the prisoners unconditionally.

From: ALM alm1998@aol.com
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