Statement By The Human Rights Committee
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Response to FBI1. 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 submitted 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 illegal 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 acknowIedged 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 (CounterIntelligence) 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 illegal 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 clemency "never killed anyone," said White House deputy chief of staff Maria Echaveste. The Clinton administration deemed their punishments, which ranged from 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 Lai Massacre. But by the FBI's 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 international law, asking that their case be heard by an impartial international 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 Northern 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 FBI's 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.
Back to index page. Last updated 4 September 1999.